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A TALE OF TWO CITIES 







THIS TALE IS INSCRIBED 

TO THE 

LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

IN REMEMBRANCE OF 
MANY PUBLIC SERVICES AND 


PRIVATE KINDNESSES 


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©CIK159e45 




(See page 94) 


Under^ the plane tree 



C. B. C 


CHARLES DICKENS 




NEW YORK MCMXXI 


©C1K159646 



OCT- 24 1321 

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PREFACE 

TO THE FIRST EDITION 

\X7HEN I was acting, with my children and friends, in Mr. Wilkie 
Collins’s drama of The Frozen Deep, I first conceived the main 
idea of this story. A strong desire was upon me then, to embody it in 
my own person, and I traced out in my fancy, the state of mind of which 
it would necessitate the presentation to an observant spectator, with par- 
ticular care and interest. 

As the idea became familiar to me, it gradually shaped itself into its 
present form. Throughout its execution, it has had complete possession 
of me; I have so far verified what is done and suffered in these pages, as 
that I have certainly done and suffered it all myself. 

Whenever any referenj^ (however slight) is made here to the condi- 
tion of the French people before or during the Revolution, it is truly 
made on the faith of the most trustworthy witnesses. It has been one 
of my hopes to add something to the popular and picturesque means of 
understanding that terrible time, though no one can hope to add anything 
to the philosophy of Mr. Carlyle’s wonderful book. 


Tavistock House, London, 
November, 1859. 


Charles Dickens 



CONTENTS 

BOOK THE FIRST 

RECALLED TO LIFE 

CHAPTER page 

1 . The Period i 

II. The Mail 4 

III. The Night Shadows 10 

IV. The Preparation ........... 14 

V. The Wine Shop .......... 25 

VI. The Shoemaker . .. ,. 35 

BOOK THE SECOND 

THE GOLDEN THREAD 

I. Five Years Later 49 

II. A Sight 55 

III. A Disappointment . ... . . . . .. . 61 

IV. Congratulatory ........... 74 

V. The Jackal ,. . . 80 

VI. Hundreds of People ..... ... «... 86 

VII. Monseigneur in Town . . ,. .. ,. . 98 

VIII. Monseigneur in the Country .. ..... 106 

IX. The Gorgon’s Head . . . r., i.. r. . .112 

X. Two Promises . .. r.i i., ^ ^ r., r.> . 123 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

XL A Companion Picture . . . . . .131 

XII. The Fellow of Delicacy ....... 135 

XIII. The Fellow of No Delicacy 142 

XIV. The Honest Tradesman 147 

XV. Knitting . . .157 

XVI. Still Knitting ........... . 168 

XVII. One Night 179 

XVIII. Nine Days 184 

XIX. An Opinion .. ,. . .190 

XX. A Plea 197 

XXL Echoing Footsteps .201 

XXII. The Sea Still Rises .212 

XXIII. Fire Rises . . .. . . . . . ., . . .217 

XXIV. Drawn to the Loadstone Rock . . . ,. ,.. ,. 224 

BOOK THE THIRD 

THE TRACK OF A STORM 

1 . In Secret . 237 

11 . The Grindstone . 248 

HI. The Shadow 255 

IV. Calm in Storm 260 

V. The Wood-Sawyer 265 

VI. Triumph .271 

VII. A Knock AT THE Door .. . 278 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

VIII. A Hand at Cards . .. . 283 

IX. The Game Made 295 

X. The Substance of the Shadow 307 

XL Dusk 321 

XII. Darkness 325 

XIII. Fifty-Two 333 

XIV. The Knitting Done 345 

XV. The Footsteps Die Out Forever 357 


0 



THE ILLUSTRATIONS 


Under the plane tree Frontispiece 

(See page 94) 

FACING 

BOOK THE FIRST PAGE 

“I am going to see his Ghost ! It will be his Ghost — not him !” . 22 

A white-haired man sat on a low bench, stooping forward and very 

busy, making shoes 34 


BOOK THE SECOND 

He made out the three fishermen creeping through some rank grass 1 153 
Madame Defarge — a Missionary such as the world will do well 


never to breed again 177 

Torn, bruised, panting, bleeding, and beseeching for mercy 

... he was hauled to the nearest street corner . . .215 


BOOK THE THIRD 

The gaoler opened a low black door . 246 

“You are again the prisoner of the Republic.” 281 

The clocks struck the numbers he would never hear again . . .335 

He gently places her with her back to the crashing engine that con- 
stantly whirrs up and falls 360 


note: The paintings by Mr. Harvey Dunn, reproduced 
in this volume, are fully protected by copyright. 



BOOK THE FIRST 


RECALLED TO LIFE 







CHAPTER I 


THE PERIOD 

I T was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of 
wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, 
it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the 
season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of 
despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we 
were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way 
— in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of 
its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for 
evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. 

There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on 
the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen 
with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was 
clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and 
fishes, that things in general were settled for ever. 

It was the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and 
seventy-five. Spiritual revelations were conceded to England at that 
favored period, as at this. Mrs. Southcott had recently attained her 
five-and-twentieth blessed birthday, of whom a prophetic private in 
the Life Guards had heralded the sublime appearance by announcing 
that arrangements were made for the swallowing up of London and 
Westminster. Even the Cock Lane ghost had been laid only a round 
dozen of years, after rapping out its messages, as the spirits of this very 
year last past (supernaturally deficient in originality) rapped out theirs. 
Mere messages in the earthly order of events had lately come to the 
English Crown and People, from a congress of British subjects in 
America: which, strange to relate, had proved more important to the 
human race than any communications yet received through any of the 
chickens of the Cock Lane brood. 

France, less favored on the whole as to matters spiritual than her 
sister of the shield and trident, rolled with exceeding smoothness down- 

I 


'2 


// TALE OF Tiro CITIES 


innkinj>- paper money and speiuling it. Under the guidance of her 
C liristian pastors, she entertained herself, besides, with such humane 
achievements as sentencing a youth to have his hands cut off, his tongue 
torn out with pincers, and his body burned alive, because he had not 
ki\ccled down in the rain to do honor to a dirty procession of monks 
which passed within his view, at a distance of some fifty or sixty yards. 
It is likely enough that, rooted in the woods of France and Norway, 
there were growing trees, when that sufferer was put to death, already 
marked by the Woiulman, b'ate, to come down and be sawn into boards, 
to make a certain movable framework with a sack and a knife in it, 
terrible ii\ history. It is likely enough that in the rough outhouses of 
some tillers of the heavy lands adjacent to Paris, there were sheltered 
from the weather that very day, rude carts, bespattered with rustic mire, 
snutfed about by pigs, and roosted in by poultry, which the Farmer, 
Death, had already set apart to be his tumbrils of the Revolution. 
But that Woodman and tliat Farmer, though they work unceasingly, 
work silently, and no one heard them as they went about with muffled 
tread: the rather, forasmuch as to entertain any suspicion that they were 
awake, was to be atheistical and traitorous. 

In Fngland, there was scarcely an amount of order and protection 
to justify much national boasting. Daring burglaries by armed men, 
and highway robberies, took place in the capital itself every night; 
families were, publicly cautioned not to go out of town without removing 
their furniture to upholsterers' warehouses of security; the highwayman 
in the dark was a City tradesman in the light, and, being recognised 
and challenged by his fellow-tradesman whom he stopped in his char- 
acter of the Captain,'’ gallantly shot him through the head and rode 
away; the mail was waylaid by seven robbers, and the guard shot three 
dead, and then got shot dead himself by the other four, “ in consequence 
of the failure of his ammunition”; after which the mail was robbed 
in peace; that magnificent potentate, the Lord Mayor of I.ondon, was 
made to stand and deliver on Turnham Green, by one highwayman, 
who despoiled the illustrious creature in sight of all his retinue; prisoners 
in I ondon gaols fought battles with their turnkeys, and the majesty of 
the law fired blunderbusses in among them, loaded with rounds of shot 
and ball; thieves snipped off diamond crosses from the necks of noble 
lords at Court drawing-rooms; musketeers went into St. Giles’s, to 
search for contraband goods, and the mob fired on the musketeers, and 


THE PERIOD 


3 


the musketeers fired on the mob, and nobody thought any of these 
occurrences much out of the common way. In the midst of them, the 
hangman, ever busy and ever worse than useless, was in constant requisi- 
tion; now, stringing up long rows of miscellaneous criminals; now, 
hanging a housebreaker on Saturday who had been taken on Tuesday; 
now, burning people in the hand at Newgate by the dozen, and now 
burning pamphlets at the door of Westminster Hall; to-day, taking the 
life of an atrocious murderer, and to-morrow of a wretched pilferer 
who had robbed a farmer’s boy of sixpence. 

All these things, and a thousand like them, came to pass in and close 
upon the dear old year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. 
Environed by them, while the Woodman and the Farmer worked 
unheeded, those two of the large jaws, and those other two of the plain 
and the fair faces, trod with stir enough, and carried their divine rights 
with a high hand. Thus did the year one thousand seven hundred and 
seventy-five conduct their Greatnesses, and myriads of small creatures 
— the creatures of this chronicle among the rest — along the roads that 
lay before them. 


CHAPTER II 


THE MAIL 

I T was the Dover road that lay, on a Friday night late in November, 
before the first of the persons with whom this history has business. 
The Dover road lay, as to him, beyond the Dover mail, as it lumbered up 
Shooter’s Hill. He walked uphill in the mire by the side of the mail, as 
the rest of the passengers did; not because they had the least relish for 
walking exercise, under the circumstances, but because the hill, and the 
harness, and the mud, and the mail, were all so heavy, that the horses had 
three times already come to a stop, besides once drawing the coach across 
the road, with the mutinous intent of taking it back to Blackheath. 
Reins and whip and coachman and guard, however, in combination, had 
read that article of war which forbade a purpose otherwise strongly in 
favor of the argument, that some brute animals are endued with Reason; 
and the team had capitulated and returned to their duty. 

With drooping heads and tremulous tails, they mashed their way 
through the thick mud, floundering and stumbling between whiles, as if 
they were falling to pieces at the larger joints. As often as the driver 
rested them and brought them to a stand, with a wary “ Wo-ho! so-ho 
then ! ” the near leader violently shook his head and everything upon it — 
like an unusually emphatic horse, denying that the coach could be got up 
the hill. Whenever the leader made this rattle, the passenger started, 
as a nervous passenger might, and was disturbed in mind. 

There was a steaming mist in all the hollows, and it had roamed in its 
forlornness up the hill, like an evil spirit, seeking rest and finding none. 
A clammy and intensely cold mist, it made its slow way through the air in 
ripples that visibly followed and overspread one another, as the waves 
of an unwholesome sea might do. It was dense enough to shut out every- 
thing from the light of the coach-lamps but these its own workings, and a 
few yards of road; and the reek of the laboring horses steamed into it, 
as if they had made it all. 

Two other passengers, besides the one, were plodding up the hill by 
the side of the mail. All three were wrapped to the cheek-bones and 

4 


THE MAIL 


5 


over the ears, and wore jack-boots. Not one of the three could have 
said, from anything he saw, what either of the other two was like; and 
each was hidden under almost as many wrappers from the eyes of the 
mind, as from the eyes of the body, of his two companions. In those 
days, travelers were very shy of being confidential on a short notice, for 
anybody on the road might be a robber or in league with robbers. As to 
the latter, when every posting-house and ale-house could produce some- 
body in “ the Captain’s ” pay, ranging from the landlord to the lowest 
stable nondescript, it was the likeliest thing upon the cards. So the 
guard of the Dover mail thought to himself, that Friday night in Novem- 
ber, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five, lumbering up Shooter’s 
Hill, as he stood on his own particular perch behind the mail, beating his 
feet, and keeping an eye and a hand on the arm-chest before him, where 
a loaded blunderbuss lay at the top of six or eight loaded horse-pistols, 
deposited on a substratum of cutlass. 

The Dover mail was in its usual genial position that the guard sus- 
pected the passengers, the passengers suspected one another and the 
guard, they all suspected everybody else, and the coachman was sure of 
nothing but the horses; as to which cattle he could with a clear conscience 
have taken his oath on the two Testaments that they were not fit for the 
journey. 

“Wo-hol” said the coachman. “So, then! One more pull and 
you’re at the top and be damned to you, for I have had trouble enough to 
get you to it 1 — Joe 1 ” 

“ Halloa 1 ” the guard replied. 

“ What o’clock do you make it, Joe? ” 

“ Ten minutes, good, past eleven.” 

“My blood!” ejaculated the vexed coachman, “and not atop of 
Shooter’s yet ! Tst! Yah! Get on with you ! ” 

The emphatic horse, cut short by the whip in a most decided negative, 
made a decided scramble for it, and the three other horses followed suit. 
Once more, the Dover mail struggled on, with the jackboots of its pas- 
sengers squashing along by its side. They had stopped when the coach 
stopped, and they kept close company with it. If any one of the three 
had had the hardihood to propose to another to walk on a little ahead 
into the mist and darkness, he would have put himself in a fair way of 
getting shot instantly as a highwayman. 

The last burst carried the mail to the summit of the hill. The horses 


6 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


stopped to breathe again, and the guard got down to skid the wheel for 
the descent, and open the coach-door to let the passengers in. 

“Tst! Joe! ” cried the coachman in a warning voice, looking down 
from his box. 

“ What do you say, Tom? 

They both listened. 

“ I say a horse at a canter coming up, Joe.” 

I say a horse at a gallop, Tom,” returned the guard, leaving his hold 
of the door, and mounting nimbly to his place. “ Gentlemen I In the 
king’s name, all of you 1 ” 

With this hurried adjuration, he cocked his blunderbuss, and stood on 
the offensive. 

The passenger booked by this history, was on the coach-step, getting 
in; the two other passengers were close behind him, and about to follow. 
He remained on the step, half in the coach and half out of it; they 
remained in the road below him. They all looked from the coachman 
to the guard, and from the guard to the coachman, and listened. The 
coachman looked back and the guard looked back, and even the emphatic 
leader pricked up his ears and looked back, without contradicting. 

The stillness consequent on the cessation of the rumbling and laboring 
of the coach, added to the stillness of the night, made it very quiet 
indeed. The panting of the horses communicated a tremulous motion to 
the coach, as if it were in a state of agitation. The hearts of the passen- 
gers beat loud enough perhaps to be heard; but at any rate, the quiet 
pause was audibly expressive of people out of breath, and holding the 
breath, and having the pulses quickened by expectation. 

The sound of a horse at a gallop came fast and furiously up the hill. 

“ So-ho ! ” the guard sang out, as loud as he could roar. “ Yo there 1 
Stand! I shall fire!” 

The pace was suddenly checked, and, with much splashing and flounder- 
ing, a man’s voice called from the mist, “ Is that the Dover mail? ” 

“ Never you mind what it is,” the guard retorted. “ What are you? ” 
Is that the Dover mail? ” 

“ Why do you want to know? ” 

“ I want a passenger, if it is.” 

“ What passenger? ” 

“ Mr. Jarvis Lorry.” 

Our booked passenger showed in a moment that it was his name. The 


THE MAIL 7 

guard, the coachman, and the two other passengers eyed him distrust- 
fully. 

“ Keep where you are,” the guard called to the voice in the mist, “ be- 
cause, if I should make a mistake, it could never be set right in your life- 
time. Gentleman of the name of Lorry answer straight.” 

“ What is the matter? ” asked the passenger, then, with mildly quaver- 
ing speech. “Who wants me? Is it Jerry?” 

;(“ I don’t like Jerry’s voice, if it is Jerry,” growled the guard to him- 
self. “ He’s hoarser than suits me, is Jerry.”) 

“ Yes, Mr. Lorry.” 

“ What is the matter? ” 

“ A dispatch sent after you from over yonder. T. and Co.” 

“ I know this messenger, guard,” said Mr. Lorry, getting down into 
the road — assisted from behind more swiftly than politely by the other 
two passengers, who immediately scrambled into the coach, shut the door, 
and pulled up the window. “He may come close; there’s nothing 
wrong.” 

“ I hope there ain’t, but I can’t make so ’Nation sure of that,” said the 
guard, in gruff soliloquy. “ Hallo you I ” 

“ Well ! And hallo you ! ” said Jerry, more hoarsely than before. 

“ Come on at a footpace! d’ye mind me? And if you’ve got holsters 
to that saddle o’ yourn, don’t let me see your hand go nigh ’em. For 
I’m a devil at a quick mistake, and when I make one it takes the form 
of Lead. So now let’s look at you.” 

The figures of a horse and rider came slowly through the eddying mist, 
and came to the side of the mail, where the passenger stood. The rider 
stooped, and, casting up his eyes at the guard, handed the passenger a 
small folded paper. The rider’s horse was blown, and both horse and 
rider were covered with mud, from the hoofs of the horse to the hat of<^ 
the man. 

“ Guard 1 ” said the passenger, in a tone of quiet business confidence. 

The watchful guard with his right hand at the stock of his raised 
blunderbuss, his left at the barrel, and his eye on the horseman, answered 
curtly, “ Sir.” 

“ There is nothing to apprehend. I belong to Tellson’s Bank. You 
must know Tellson’s Bank in London. I am going to Paris on business. 
A crown to drink. I may read this? ” 

“ If so be as you’re quick, sir.” 


8 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


He opened it in the light of the coach-lamp on that side, and read — 
first to himself and then aloud: “ Wait at Dover for Mam’selle.’ It’s 
not long, you see, guard. Jerry, say that my answer was, recalled TO 
LIFE.'" 

Jerry started in his saddle. “ That’s a blazing strange answer, too,” 
said he, at his hoarsest. 

“ Take that message back, and they will know that I received this, as 
well as if I wrote. Make the best of your way. Good-night.” 

With those words the passenger opened the coach-door and got in; not 
at all assisted by his fellow-passengers, who had expeditiously secreted 
their watches and purses in their boots, and were now making a general 
pretence of being asleep. With no more definite purpose than to escape 
the hazard of originating any other kind of action. 

The coach lumbered on again, with heavier wreaths of mist closing 
round it as it began the descent. The guard soon replaced his blunder- 
buss in his arm-chest, and, having looked to the rest of its contents, and 
having looked to the supplementary pistols that he wore in his belt, 
looked to a smaller chest beneath his seat, in which there were a few 
smith’s tools, a couple of torches, and a tinder-box. For he was fur- 
nished with that completeness that if the coach-lamps had been blown and 
stormed out, which did occasionally happen, he had only to shut himself 
up inside, keep the flint and steel sparks well off the straw, and get a light 
with tolerable safety and ease (if he were lucky, in five minutes.) 

“ TomI ” softly over the coach-roof. 

“ Hallo, Joe.” 

“ Did you hear the message?” 

“ I did, Joe.” 

“ What did you make of it, Tom? ” 

“ Nothing at all, Joe.” 

“ That’s a coincidence, too,” the guard mused, “ for I made lihe same 
of it myself.” 

Jerry, left alone in the mist and darkness, dismounted meanwhile, not 
only to ease his spent horse, but to wipe the mud from his face, and shake 
the wet out of his hat-brim, which might be capable of holding about half 
a gallon. After standing with the bridle over his heavily-splashed arm, 
until the wheels of the mail were no longer within hearing and the night 
was quite still again, he turned to walk down the hill. 

“ After that there gallop from Temple Bar, old lady, I won’t trust 


THE MAIL 


9 


your fore-legs till I get you on the level,” said the hoarse messenger, 
glancing at his mare. “ ‘Recalled to life.’ That’s a blazing strange 
i message. Much of that wouldn’t do for you, Jerry! I say, Jerry! 
You’d be in a blazing bad way, if recalling to life was to come into 
fashion, Jerry! ” 


CHAPTER III 


THE NIGHT SHADOWS 

A WONDERFUL fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is 
constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. 
A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every 
one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every 
room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating 
heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its 
imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it ! Something of the awfulness, 
even of Death itself, is referable to this. No more can I turn the leaves 
of this dear book that I love, and vainly hope in time to read it all. 
No more can I look into the depths of this unfathomable water, wherein, 
as momentary lights glanced into it, I have had glimpses of buried 
treasure and other things submerged. It was appointed that the book 
should shut with a spring, forever and forever, when I had read but a 
page. It was appointed that the water should be locked in an eternal 
frost, when the light was playing on its surface, and I stood in ignorance 
on the shore. My friend is dead, my neighbor is dead, my love, the 
darling of my soul, is dead; it is the inexorable consolidation and perpetu- 
ation of the secret that was always in that individuality, and which I shall 
carry in mine to my life’s end. In any of the burial-places of this city 
through which I pass, is there a sleeper more inscrutable than its busy 
inhabitants are, in their innermost personality, to me, or than I am to 
them? 

As to this, his natural and not to be alienated inheritance, the messen- 
ger on horseback had exactly the same possessions as the King, the first 
Minister of State, or the richest merchant in London. So with the three 
passengers shut up in the narrow compass of one lumbering old mail 
coach; they were mysteries to one another, as complete as if each had 
been in his own coach and six, or his own coach and sixty, with the 
breadth of a county between him and the next. 

The messenger rode back at an easy trot, stopping pretty often at ale- 
houses by the way to drink, but evincing a tendency to keep his own 

10 


THE NIGHT SHADOWS 


II 


counsel, and to keep his hat cocked over his eyes. He had eyes that 
assorted very well with that decoration, being of a surface black, with no 
depth in the color or form, and much too near together — as if they were 
afraid of being found out in something, singly, if they kept too far apart. 
They had a sinister expression, under an old cocked hat like a three- 
cornered spittoon, and over a great muffler for the chin and throat, which 
descended nearly to the wearer’s knees. When he stopped for drink, 
he moved this muffler with his left hand, only while he poured his liquor 
in with his right; as soon as that was done, he muffled again. 

“ No, Jerry, no ! ” said the messenger, harping on one theme as he 
rode. “ It wouldn’t do for you, Jerry. Jerry, you honest tradesman, 
it wouldn’t suit your line of business ! Recalled — ! Bust me if I don’t 
think he’d been a drinking! ” 

His message perplexed his mind to that degree that he was fain, several 
times, to take off his hat to scratch his head. Except on the crown, 
which was raggedly bald, he had stiff, black hair, standing jaggedly all 
over it, and growing downhill almost to his broad, blunt nose. It was 
so like smith’s work, so much more like the top of a strongly spiked wall 
than a head of hair, that the best of players at leap-frog might have 
declined him, as the most dangerous man in the world to go over. 

While he trotted back with the message he was to deliver to the night 
watchman in his box at the door of Tellson’s Bank, by Temple Bar, who 
was to deliver it to greater authorities within, the shadows of the night 
took such shapes to him as arose out of the message, and took such shapes 
to the mare as arose out of her private topics of uneasiness. They 
seemed to be numerous, for she shied at every shadow on the road. 

What time, the mail-coach lumbered, jolted, rattled, and bumped upon 
its tedious way, with its three fellow-inscrutables inside. To whom, like- 
wise, the shadows of the night revealed themselves, in the forms their 
dozing eyes and wandering thoughts suggested. 

Tellson’s Bank had a run upon it in the mail. As the bank pas- 
senger — with an arm drawn through the leathern strap, which did what 
lay in it to keep him from pounding against the next passenger, and 
driving him into his corner, whenever the coach got a special jolt — 
nodded in his place, with half-shut eyes, the little coach-windows, and the 
coach-lamp dimly gleaming through them, and the bulky bundle of 
opposite :)assenger, became the bank, and did a great stroke of business. 
The ratth of the harness was the chink of money, and more drafts were 


12 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


honored in five minutes than even Tellson’s, with all its foreign and home 
connection, ever paid in thrice the time. Then the strong-rooms under- 
ground, at Tellson’s, with such of their valuables stores and secrets as 
were known to the passenger (and it was not a little that he knew about 
them), opened before him, and he went in among them with the great 
keys and the feebly-burning candle, and found them safe, just as he had 
last seen them. 

But, though the bank was almost always with him, and though the 
coach (in a confused way, like the presence of pain under an opiate) was 
always with him, there was another current of impression that never 
ceased to run, all through the night. He was on his way to dig some one 
out of a grave. 

Now, which of the multitude of faces that showed themselves before 
him was the true face of the buried person, the shadows of the night did 
not indicate; but they were all the faces of a man of five-and-forty by 
years, and they differed principally in the passions they expressed, and in 
the ghastliness of their worn and wasted state. Pride, contempt, defi- 
ance, stubbornness, submission, lamentation, succeeded one another; so 
did varieties of sunken cheek, cadaverous color, emaciated hands and 
figures, but the face was in the main one face, and every head was pre- 
maturely white. A hundred times the dozing passenger inquired of this 
specter : 

“ Buried how long?” 

The answer was always the same: “Almost eighteen years.” 

“ You had abandoned all hope 'of being dug out? ” 

“ Long ago.” 

“ You know that you are recalled to life? ” 

“ They tell me so.” 

“ I hope you care to live? ” 

“ I can’t say.” 

“ Shall I show her to you? Will you come and see her? ” 

The answers to this question were various and contradictory. Some- 
times the broken reply was, “ Wait! - It would kill me if I saw her too 
soon,” Sometimes it was given in a tender rain of tears, and then it was, 
“ Take me to her.” Sometimes it was staring and bewildered, and then 
it was, “ I don’t know her. I don’t understand.” 

After such imaginary discourse, the passenger in his fancy would dig, 
and dig, dig — now with a spade, now with a great key, now with his 


THE NIGHT SHADOWS 


13 


hands — to dig this wretched creature out. Got out at last, with earth 
hanging about his face and hair, he would suddenly fall away to dust. 
The passenger would then start to himself, and lower the window, to get 
the reality of mist and rain on his cheek. 

Yet even when his eyes were opened on the mist and rain, on the mov- 
ing patch of light from the lamps, and the hedge at the roadside retreat- 
ing by jerks, the night shadows outside the coach would fall into the train 
of the night shadows within. The real Banking-house by Temple Bar, 
the real business of the past day, the real strong-rooms, the real express 
sent after him, and the real message returned, would all be there. Out 
of the midst of them, the ghostly face would rise, and he would accost it 
again. 

“ Buried how long? ” 

“ Almost eighteen years.” 

I hope you care to live? ” 

“ I can’t say.” 

Dig — dig — dig — until an impatient movement from one of the two 
passengers would admonish him to pull up the window, draw his arm 
securely through the leathern strap, and speculate upon the two slumber- 
ing forms, until his mind lost its hold of them, and they again slid away 
into the bank and the grave. 

“ Buried how long? ” 

“ Almost eighteen years.” 

“ You have abandoned all hope of being dug out? ” 

“ Long ago.” 

The words were still in his hearing as just spoken — distinctly in his 
hearing as ever spoken words had been in his life — when the weary pas- 
senger started to the consciousness of daylight, and found that the 
shadows of night were gone. 

He lowered the window, and looked out at the rising sun. There was 
a ridge of plowed land, with a plow upon it where it had been left last 
night when the horses were unyoked; beyond, a quiet coppice-wood, in 
which many leaves of burning red and golden yellow still remained upon 
the trees. Though the earth was cold and wet, the sky was clear, and 
the sun rose bright, placid, and beautiful. 

“ Eighteen years ! ” said the passenger, looking at the sun. 
“ Gracious Creator of day I To be buried alive for eighteen years! ” 


l 


CHAPTER IV 


THE PREPARATION 

W HEN the mall got successfully to Dover, in the course of the 
forenoon, the head drawer at the Royal George Hotel opened 
the coach-door as his custom was. He did it with some flourish of cere- 
mony, for a mail journey from London in winter was an achievement to 
congratulate an adventurous traveler upon. 

By that time, there was only one adventurous traveler left to be con- 
gratulated : for the two others had been set down at their respective road- 
side destinations. The mildewy inside of the coach, with its damp and 
dirty straw, its disagreeable smell, and its obscurity was rather like a 
larger dog-kennel. Mr. Lorry, the passenger, shaking himself out of it 
in chains of straw, a tangle of shaggy wrapper, flapping hat, and muddy 
legs, was rather like a larger sort of dog. 

“ There will be a packet to Calais, to-morrow, drawer? ” 

“ Yes, sir, if the weather holds and the wind sets tolerable fair. The 
tide will serve pretty nicely at about two in the afternoon, sir. Bed, 
sir? ” 

“ I shall not go to bed till night; but I want a bed-room, and a barber.” 
“And then breakfast, sir? Yes, sir. That way sir, if you please. 
Show Concord! Gentleman’s valise and hot water to Concord. Pull 
off gentleman’s boots in Concord. (You will find a fine sea-coal fire, 
sir.) Fetch barber to Concord. Stir about there, now, for Concord! ” 
The Concord bed-chamber being always assigned to a passenger by 
the mail, and passengers by the mail being always heavily wrapped up 
from head to foot, the room had the odd interest for the establishment of 
the Royal George, that although but one kind of man was seen to go 
into it, all kinds and varieties of men^ came out of it. Consequently, 
another drawer, and two porters, and several maids and the landlady, 
were all loitering by accident at various points of the road between Con- 
cord and the coffee-room, when a gentleman of sixty, formally dressed in 
a brown suit of clothes, pretty well worn, but very well kept, with large 

14 


I 


THE PREPARATION 15 

square cuffs and large flaps to the pockets, passed along on his way to 
his breakfast. 

The coffee-room had no other occupant, that forenoon, than the gentle- 
man in brown. His breakfast-table was drawn before the fire, and as he 
sat, with its light shining on him, waiting for the meal, he sat so still, 
that he might have been sitting for his portrait. 

Very orderly and methodical he looked, with a hand on each knee, and 
a loud watch ticking a sonorous sermon under his flapped waistcoat, as 
though it pitted its gravity and longevity against the levity and evanes- 
cence of the brisk fire. He had a good leg, and was a little vain of it, 
for his brown stockings fitted sleek and close, and were of a fine texture; 
his shoes and buckles, too, though plain, were trim. He wore an odd 
little sleek crisp flaxen wig, setting very close to his head: which wig, it is 
to be presumed, was made of hair, but which looked far more as though 
it were spun from filaments of silk or glass. His linen, though not of a 
fineness in accordance with his stockings, was as white as the tops of the 
waves that broke upon the neighboring beach, or the specks of sail that 
glinted in the sunlight far at sea. A face habitually suppresssed and 
quieted, was still lighted up under the quaint wig by a pair of moist bright 
eyes that it must have cost their owner, in years gone by, some pains to 
drill to the composed and reserved expression of Tellson’s Bank. He 
had a healthy color in his cheeks, and his face, though lined, bore few 
traces of anxiety. But, perhaps the confidential bachelor clerks in Tell- 
son’s Bank were principally occupied with the cares of other people; and 
perhaps second-hand cares, like second-hand clothes, come easily off and 
on. 

Completing his resemblance to a man who was sitting for his portrait, 
Mr. Lorry dropped off to sleep. The arrival of his breakfast roused 
him, and he said to the drawer, as he moved his chair to it: 

“ I wish accommodation prepared for a young lady who may come 
here at any time to-day. She may ask for Mr. Jarvis Lorry, or she may 
only ask for a gentleman from Tellson’s Bank. Please to let me know.” 

“ Yes, sir. Tellson’s Bank in London, sir? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Yes, sir. We have oftentimes the honor to entertain your gentlemen 
in their traveling backwards and forwards betwixt London and Paris, sir. 
A vast deal of traveling, sir, in Tellson and Company’s House.” 

“ Yes. We are quite a French House, as well as an English one.” 


i6 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ Yes, sir. Not much In the habit of such traveling yourself, I think, 
sir?” 

“ Not of late years. It is fifteen years since we — since I • — came last 
from France.” 

“ Indeed, sir? That was before my time here, sir. Before our 
people’s time here, sir. The George was in other hands at that time, 
sir.” 

“ I believe so.” 

“ But I would hold a pretty wager, sir, that a House like Tellson and 
Company was flourishing, a matter of fifty, not to speak of fifteen years 
ago?” 

“You might treble that, and say a hundred and fifty, yet not be far 
from the truth.” 

“ Indeed, sir! ” 

Rounding his mouth and both his eyes, as he stepped backward from 
the table, the waiter shifted his napkin from his right arm to his left, 
dropped Into a comfortable attitude, and stood surveying the guest while 
he ate and drank, as from an observatory or watch-tower. According to 
the Immemorial usage of waiters in all ages. 

When Mr. Lorry had finished his breakfast, he went out for a stroll 
on the beach. The little narrow, crooked town of Dover hid itself away 
from the beach, and ran its head into the chalk cliffs, like a marine 
ostrich. The beach was a desert of heaps of sea and stones tumbling 
wildly about, and the sea did what it liked, and what it liked was destruc- 
tion. It thundered at the town, and thundered at the cliffs, and brought 
the coast down, madly. The air among the houses was of so strong a 
piscatory flavor that one might have supposed sick fish went up to be 
dipped In It, as sick people went down to be dipped in the sea. A little 
fishing was done in the port, and a quantity of strolling about by night, 
and looking seaward : particularly at those times when the tide made, and 
was near flood. Small tradesmen, who did no business whatever, some- 
times unaccountably realized large fortunes, and it was remarkable that 
nobody in the neighborhood could endure a lamplighter. 

As the day declined into the afternoon, and the air, which had been at 
intervals clear enough to allow the French coast to be seen, became again 
charged with mist and vapor, Mr. Lorry’s thoughts seemed to cloud too. 
When it was dark, and he sat before the coffee-room fire, awaiting his 


THE PREPARATION 


17 


dinner as he had awaited his breakfast, his mind was busily digging, dig- 
ging, digging, in the live red coals. 

A bottle of good claret after dinner does a digger in the red coals no 
harm, otherwise than as it has a tendency to throw him out of work. 
Mr. Lorry had been idle a long time, and had just poured out his last 
glassful of wine with as complete an appearance of satisfaction as is ever 
to be found in an elderly gentleman of a fresh complexion who has got 
to the end of a bottle, when a rattling of wheels came up the narrow 
street, and rumbled into the inn-yard. 

He set down his glass untouched. “ This is Mam’selle ! ” said he. 

In a very few minutes the waiter came in to announce that Miss 
Manette had arrived from London, and would be happy to see the gentle- 
man from Tellson’s. 

“ So soon?” 

Miss Manette had taken some refreshment on the road, and required 
none then, and was extremely anxious to see the gentleman from Tellson’s 
immediately, if it suited his pleasure and convenience. 

The gentleman from Tellson’s had nothing left for it but to empty 
his glass with an air of stolid desperation, settle his odd little waxen wig 
at the ears, and follow the waiter to Miss Manette’s apartment. It was 
a large, dark room, furnished in a funereal manner with black horsehair, 
and loaded with heavy dark tables. These had been oiled and oiled, 
until the two tall candles on the table in the middle of the room were 
gloomily reflected on every leaf; as if they were buried, in deep graves of 
black mahogany, and no light to speak of could be expected from them 
until they were dug out. 

The obscurity was so difficult to penetrate that Mr. Lorry, picking 
his way over the well-worn Turkey carpet, supposed Miss Manette 
to be, for the moment, in some adjacent room, until, having got past the 
two tall candles, he saw standing to receive him by the table between them 
and the fire, a young lady of not more than seventeen, in a riding-cloak, 
and still holding her straw traveling-hat by its ribbon in her hand. As his 
eyes rested on a short, slight, pretty figure, a quantity of golden hair, a 
pair of blue eyes that met his own with an inquiring look, and a forehead 
with a singular capacity (remembering how young and smooth it was), 
of lifting and knitting itself into an expression that was not quite one of 
perplexity, or wonder, or alarm, or merely of a bright fixed attention, 
though it included all the four expressions — as his eyes rested on these 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


things, a sudden vivid likeness passed before him, of a child whom he had 
held in his arms on the passage across that very Channel, one cold time, 
when the hail drifted heavily and the sea ran high. The likeness passed 
away, like a breath along the surface of the gaunt pier-glass behind her, 
on the frame of which, a hospital procession of negro cupids, several 
headless and all cripples, were offering black baskets of Dead Sea fruit 
to black divinities of the feminine gender — and he made his formal 
bow to Miss Manette. 

“ Pray take a seat, sir.” In a very clear and pleasant young voice; a 
little foreign in its accent, but a very little indeed. 

“ I kiss your hand, miss,” said Mr. Lorry, with the manners of an 
earlier date, as he made his formal bow again, and took his seat. 

“ I received a letter from the Bank, sir, yester'day, informing me that 
some intelligence — or discovery — ” 

“ The word b nor material, miss; either word will do.” 

— respecting the small property of my poor father, wh\)m I never 
saw — ^ so long dead — ’ 

Mr. Lorry moved in his chair, and cast a troubled look towards the 
hospital procession of negro cupids. As if they had any help for anybody 
in their absurd baskets ! 

“ — rendered it necessary that I should go to Paris, there to communi- 
cate with the gentleman of the Bank, so good as to be dispatched to Paris 
for the purpose.” 

“ Myself.” 

“ As I was prepared to hear, sir.” 

She curtseyed to him (young ladies made curtseys in those days), with 
a pretty desire to convey to him that she felt how much older and wiser 
he was than she. He made her another bow. 

“ I replied to the Bank, sir, that as it was considered neCessrary, by 
those who know, and who are so kind as to advise me, that I should go to 
France, and that as I am an orphan and have no friend who could go 
with me, I should esteem it highly if I might be permitted to place my- 
self, during the journey, under that worthy gentleman’s protection. The 
gentleman had left London, but I think a messenger was sent after him 
to beg the favor of his waiting for me here.” 

“ I was happy,” said Mr. Lorry, “ to be entrusted with the charge. 

I shall be more happy to execute it.” 


THE PREPARATION 


19 


“ Sir, I thank you indeed. I thank you very gratefully. It was told 
me by the Bank that the gentleman would explain to me the details of 
the business, and that I must prepare myself to find them -of a surprising 
nature. I have done my best to prepare myself, and I naturally have a 
strong and eager interest to know what they are.” 

“ Naturally,” said Mr. Lorry. “ Yes — I — ” 

After a pause, he added, again settling the crisp flaxe’n wig at the ears : 

“ It is very difficult to begin.” 

He did not begin, but, in his indedsion, met her glance. The young 
forehead lifted itself into that singular expression — but it was pretty 
and characteristic, besides being singular — and she raised her hand, as 
if with an involuntary action she caught at, or stayed -some passing 
shadow. 

‘‘ Are you quite a stranger to me, sir? ” 

“ Am I not? ” Mr. Lorry opened his hands, and extended them out- 
wards with an argumentative smile. 

Between the eyebrows and just over the little feminine nose, the line 
of which was as delicate and fine as it was possible to be, the expression 
deepened itself as she to’ok her seat thoughtfully in the chair by which she 
had hitherto remained standing. He watched her as she mused, and the 
moment she raised her eyes again, went on: 

“ In your adopted country, I presume, I cannot do better than address 
you as a young English lady. Miss Manette? ” 

“ If you please, sir.” 

“ Miss Manette, I am a man of business. I have a business charge to 
acquit myself of. In your reception of it, don’t heed me any more than 
if I was a speaking machine — truly, I am not much else. I will, with 
your leave, relate to you, miss, the story of one of our custoniers.” 

“Story!” 

He seemed willfully to mistake the word she had repeated, when he 
added, in a hurry: “ Yes, customers; in the banking business we usually 
call our connection our customers. He was a French gentleman; a scien- 
tific gentleman; a man of great acquirements - — a Doctor.” 

“ Not of Beauvais? ” 

“ Why, yes, of Beauvais. Like Monsieur Manette, your father, 
the gentleman was of Beauvais. Like Monsieur Manette, your father, 
the gentlema*n was of repute in Paris. I had the honor of knowing 


20 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


him there. Our relations were business relations, but confidential. I 
was at that time In our French House, and had been — oh, twenty 
years.” 

“ At that time — ^may I ask, at what time, sir? ” 

“ I speak, miss, of twenty years ago. He married — an English lady 
— and I was one of the trustees. His affairs, like the affairs of many 
other French gentlemen and French families, were entirely in Tellson’s 
hands. In a similar way I am, or I have been, trustee of one kind or 
other for scores of our customers. These are mere business relations, 
miss; there is no friendship in them, no particular interest, nothing like 
sentiment. I haVe passed from one to another, in the course of my busi- 
ness life, just as I pass from one of our customers to another in the course 
of my business day; in short, I have no feelings; I am a mere machine. 
To go on — ” 

“ But this is my father’s story, sir; and I began to think ” — the curi- 
ously roughened forehead was very Intent upon him — “ that when I 
was left an orphan through my mother’s surviving my father only two 
years, it was you who brought me to England. I am almost sure it 
was you.” 

Mr. Lorry took the hesitating little hand that confidingly advanced to 
•take his, and he put it with some ceremony to his lips. He then con- 
ducted the young lady 'straightway to her chair again, and, holding the 
chair-back with his left hand, and using his right by turns to rub his chin, 
pull his wig at the ears, or point what he said, stood looking down into 
her face while she sat looking up into his. 

“ Miss Manette, it was I. And you will see how truly I spoke of 
myse-lf just now, in saying I had no feelings, and that all the relations I 
hold with my fellow-creatures are mere business relations, when you 
reflect that I have never seen you since. No; you have been the ward of 
Tellson’s House since, and I have been busy with the other business of 
Tellson’s House since. Feelings! I have no time for them, no chance 
for them. I pass my whole life, miss, in turning an immense pecuniary 
Mangle.” 

After this odd description of his daily routine of employment, Mr. 
Lorry flattened his flaxen wig upon his head with both hands (which was 
most unnecessary, for nothing could be flatter than its shining surface was 
before), and resumed his former attitude. 

“So far, miss (as you have, remarked), this is the story of your 


THE PREPARATION 


21 


regretted father. Now comes the difference. If your father had not 
died when he did — don’t be frightened ! How you start ! ” 

She did, indeed, start. And she caught his wrist with both her hands. 

“ Pray,” said Mr. Lorry, in a soothing tone, bringing his left hand 
from the back of the chair to lay it on the supplicatory fingers that 
clasped him in so violent a tremble: “pray control your agitation — a 
matter of business. As I was saying — ” 

Her look so discomposed him that he stopped, wandered, and began 
anew: 

“ As I was saying; if Monsieur Manette had not died; if he had sud- 
denly and silently disappeared; if he had been spirited away; if it had 
not been difficult to guess to what dreadful place, though no art could 
trace him; if he had an enemy in some compatriot who could exercise a 
privilege that I in my own time have known the boldest people afraid to 
speak of in a whisper, across the water there; for instance, the privilege 
of filling up blank forms for the consignment of any one to the oblivion 
of a prison for any length of time; if his wife had implored the king, 
the queen, the court, the clergy, for any tidings of him, and all quite in 
vain; then the history of your father would have been the history 
of this unfortunate gentleman, the Doctor of Beauvais.” 

“ I entreat you to tell me more, sir.” 

“ I will. I am going to. You can bear it? ” 

“ I can bear anything but the uncertainty you leave me in at this 
moment.” 

“You speak collectedly, and you — are collected. That’s good I” 
(Though his manner was less satisfied than his words.) “ A matter of 
business. Regard it as a matter of business — business that must be 
done. Now if this doctor’s wife, though a lady of great courage and 
spirit, had suffered so intensely from this cause before her little child was 
born — ” 

“ The little child was a daughter, sir.” 

“ A daughter. A — a — matter of business — don’t be distressed. 
Miss, if the poor lady had suffered so intensely before her little child was 
born, that she came to the determination of sparing the poor child the 
inheritance of any part of the agony she had known the pains of, by 
rearing her in the belief that her father was dead — no, don’t kneel. 
In Heaven’s name why should you kneel to me ! ” 

“ For the truth. O dear, good, compassionate sir, for the truth!” 


22 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“A — a matter of business. You confuse me, and how can I transact 
business if I am confused? Let us be clear-headed. If you could kindly 
mention now, for instance, what nine times ninepence are, or how many 
shillings In twenty guineas, it would be so encouraging. I should be so 
much more at my ease about your state of mind.” 

Without directly answering to this appeal, she sat so still when he had 
very gently raised her, and the hands that had not ceased to clasp his 
wrists were so much more steady than they had been, that she communi- 
cated some reassurance to Mr. Jarvis Lorry. 

“That’s right, that’s right. Courage! Business! You have busi- 
ness before you; useful business. Miss Manette, your mother took this 
course with you. And when she died — I believe broken-hearted — 
having never slackened her unavailing search for your father, she left 
you, at two years old, to grow to be blooming, beautiful, and happy, 
without the dark cloud upon you of living in uncertainty whether your 
father soon wore his heart out in prison, or wasted there through many 
lingering years.” 

As he said the words he looked down, with an admiring pity, on the 
flowing golden hair; as if he pictured to himself that it might have been 
already tinged with gray. 

“ You know that your parents had no great possession, and that what 
they had was secured to your mother and to you. There has been no 
new discovery, of money, or of any other property; but — ” 

He felt his wrist held closer, and he stopped. The expression in the 
forehead, which had so particularly attracted his notice, and which was 
now immovable, had deepened Into one of pain and horror. 

“ But he has been — been found. He Is alive. Greatly changed, it 
Is too probable ; almost a wreck. It is possible ; though we will hope for 
the best. Still, alive. Your father has been taken to the house of an 
old servant in Paris, and we are going there; I, to identify him if lean; 
you, to restore him to life, love, duty, rest, comfort.” 

A shiver ran through her frame, and from it through his. She said, 
in a low, distinct, awe-stricken voice, as if she was saying It in a dream, 

“ I am going to see his Ghost ! It will be his Ghost — not him ! ” 

Mr. Lorry quietly chafed the hands that held his arm. “ There, 
there, there ! See now, see now ! The best and the worst are known to 
you now. You are well on your way to the poor wronged gentleman. 




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THE PREPARATION 23 

and, with a fair sea voyage, and a fair land journey, you will be soon at 
his dear side.” 

She repeated in the same tone, sunk to a whisper, “ I have been free, 
I have been happy, yet his Ghost has never haunted me I ” 

“ Only one thing more,” said Mr. Lorry, laying stress upon it as a 
wholesome means of enforcing her attention: “ he has been found under 
another name; his own, long forgotten or long concealed. It would be 
worse than useless now to inquire which; worse than useless to seek to 
know whether he has been for years overlooked, or always designedly 
held prisoner. It would be worse than useless now to make any inquiries, 
because it would be dangerous. Better not to mention the subject, any- 
where or in any way, and to remove him — for a while at all events — 
out of France. Even I, safe as an Englishman, and even Tellson’s, 
important as they are to French credit, avoid all naming of the matter. 
I carry about me, not a scrap of writing openly referring to it. This is a 
secret service altogether. My credentials, entries, and memoranda, are 
all comprehended in the one line, ‘ Recalled to Life ’ ; which may mean 
anything. But what is the matter ! She doesn’t notice a word ! Miss 
Manette ! ” 

Perfectly still and silent, and not even fallen back in her chair, she 
sat under his hand, utterly insensible ; with her eyes open and fixed upon 
him, and with that last expression looking as if it were carved or 
branded into her forehead. So close was her hold upon his arm, that he 
feared to detach himself lest he should hurt her; therefore he called out 
loudly for assistance without moving. 

A wild-looking woman, whom even in his agitation, Mr. Lorry 
observed to be all of a red color, and to have red hair, and to be dressed 
in some extraordinary tight-fitting fashion, and to have on her head a 
most wonderful bonnet like a Grenadier wooden measure, and good 
measure, too, or a great Stilton cheese, came running into the room in 
advance of the inn servants, and soon settled the question of his detach- 
ment from the poor young lady, by laying a brawny hand upon his chest, 
and sending him flying* back against the nearest wall. 

(“I really think this must be a man! ” was Mr. Lorry’s breathless 
reflection, simultaneously with his coming against the wall.) 

“ Why, look at you all I ” bawled this figure, addressing the inn serv- 
ants. “ Why don’t you go and fetch things, instead of standing there 


24 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


staring at me? I am not so much to look at, am I? Why don’t you 
go and fetch things? I’ll let you know, if you don’t bring smelling- 
salts, cold water, and vinegar, quick, I will.” 

There was an immediate dispersal for these restoratives, and she 
softly laid the patient on a sofa, and tended her with great skill and 
gentleness: calling her “ my precious! ” and “ my bird! ” and spreading 
her golden hair aside over her shoulders with great pride and care. 

“And you in brown! ” she said, indignantly turning to Mr. Lorry; 
“ couldn’t you tell her what you had to tell her, without frightening her 
to death? Look at her, with her pretty pale face and her cold hands. 
Do you call that being a Banker? ” 

Mr. Lorry was so exceedingly disconcerted by a question so hard to 
answer, that he could only look on, at a distance, with much feebler 
sympathy and humility, while the strong woman, having banished the 
inn servants under the mysterious penalty of “ letting them know ” some 
thing not mentioned if they stayed there, staring, recovered her charge 
by a regular series of gradations, and coaxed her to lay her drooping 
head upon her shoulder. 

“ I hope she will do well now,” said Mr. Lorry. 

“ No thanks to you in brown, if she does. My darling pretty! ” 

“ I hope,” said Mr. Lorry, after an-other pause of feeble sympathy 
and humility, “ that you accompany Miss Manette to France? ” 

“ A likely thing, too ! ” replied the strong woman. “ If it was ever 
intended that I should go across salt water, do you suppose Providence 
would have cast my lot on an island? ” 

This being another question hard to answer, Mr. Jarvis Lorry with- 
drew to •consider it. 


CHAPTER V 


THE WINESHOP 

A LARGE cask of wine had been dropped and broken, in the street. 

The accident had happened in getting it out of a cart; the cask had 
tumbled out with a run, the hoops had burst, and it lay on the stones just 
outside the door of the wine-shop, shattered like a walnut-shell. 

All the people within reach had suspended their business or their 
idleness to run to the spot and drink the wine. The rough, irreg- 
ular stones of the street, pointing every way, and designed, one might 
have thought, expressly to lame all living creatures that approached 
them, had dammed it into little pools; these were surrounded, each 
by its own jostling group or crowd, according to its size. Some men 
kneeled down, made scoops of their two hands joined, and sipped, 
or tried to help women, who bent over their shoulders, to sip, before 
the wine had all run out between their fingers. Others, men and women, 
dipped in the puddles with little mugs of mutilated earthenware, or 
even with handkerchiefs from women’s heads, which were squeezed dry 
into infants’ mouths; others made small mud-embankments, to stem the 
wine as it ran; others, directed by lookers-on up at high windows, darted 
here and there, to cut off little streams of wine that started away in new 
directions ; others devoted themselves to the sodden and lee-dyed pieces 
of the cask, licking, and even champing the moister wine-rotted frag- 
ments with eager relish. There was no drainage to carry off the wine, 
and not only did it all get taken up, but so much mud got taken up along 
with it, that there might have been a scaxenger in the street, if anybody 
acquainted with it could have believed in such a miraculous presence. 

A shrill sound of laughter and of amused voices — voices of men, 
women, and children — resounded in the street while this wine game 
lasted. There was little roughness in the sport, and much playfulness. 
There was a special companionship in it, and observable inclination on 
the part of every one to join some other one, which led, especially among 
the luckier or lighter-hearted, to frolicsome embraces, drinking of 
healths, shaking of hands, and even joining of hands and dancing, a 

25 


26 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


dozen together. When the wine was gone, and the places where it had 
been most abundant were raked into a gridiron-pattern by fingers, these 
demonstrations ceased, as suddenly as they had broken out. The man 
who had left his saw sticking in the firewood he was cutting, set it in 
motion again; the woman who had left on a doorstep the little pot of hot 
ashes, at which she had been trying to soften the pain in her own starved 
fingers and toes, or in those of her child, returned to it; men with bare 
arms, matted locks, and cadaverous faces, who had emerged into the 
winter light from cellars, moved away, to descend again; and a gloom 
gathered on the scene that appeared more natural to it than sunshine. 

The wine was red wine, and had stained the ground of the narrow 
street in the suburb of Saint Antoine, in Paris, where it was spilled. It 
had stained many hands, too, and many faces, and many naked feet, and 
many wooden shoes. The hands of the man who sawed the wood, left 
red marks on the billets; and the forehead of the woman who nursed her 
baby, was stained with the stain of the old rag she wound about her 
head again. Those who had been greedy with the staves of the cask, 
had acquired a tigerish smear about the mouth; and one tall joker so 
besmirched, his head more out of a long squalid bag of a nightcap than 
in it, scrawled upon a wall with his finger dipped in muddy wine-lees — 
Blood. 

The time was to come, when that wine too would be spilled on the 
street-stones, and when the stain of it would be red upon many there. 

And now that the clouds settle on Saint Antoine, which a momentary 
gleam had driven from his sacred countenance, the darkness of it was 
heavy — cold, dirt, sickness, ignorance, and want, were the lords in 
waiting on the saintly presence — nobles of great power all of them; 
but, most especially the last. Samples of a people that had undergone 
a terrible grinding and re-grinding in the mill, and certainly not in the 
fabulous mill which ground old people young, shivered at every corner, 
passed in and out at every doorway, looked from every window, flut- 
tered in every vestige of a garment that the wind shook. The mill 
which had worked them down, was the mill that grinds young people 
old; the children had ancient faces and grave voices; and upon them, 
and upon the grown faces, and plowed into every furrow of age and 
coming up afresh, was the sign. Hunger. It was prevalent everywhere. 
Hunger was pushed out of the tall houses, in the wretched clothing that 
hung upon poles and lihes; Hunger was patched into them with straw 


THE WINESHOP 


27 


and rag and wood and paper; Hunger was repeated in every fragment 
of the small modicum of fire-wood that the man sawed off ; Hunger stared 
down from the smokeless chimneys and started up from the filthy street 
that had no offal, among its refuse, or anything to eat. Hunger was the 
inscription on the baker’s shelves, written in every small loaf of his 
scanty stock of bad bread; at the sausage-shop, in every dead-dog pre- 
paration that was offered for sale. vHunger rattled its dry bones among 
the roasting chestnuts in the turned cylinder; Hunger was shred into 
atomies in every farthing porringer of husky chips of potato, fried with 
some reluctant drops of oil. 

’Its abiding place was in all things fitted to it. A narrow winding 
street, full of offense and stench, with other narrow winding streets di- 
verging, all peopled by rags and nightcaps, and all smelling of rags and 
nightcaps, and all visible things with a brooding look upon them that 
looked ill. In the hunted air of the people there was yet some wild- 
beast thought of the possibility of turning at bay. Depressed and slink- 
ing though they were, eyes of fire were not wanting among them; nor 
compressed lips, white with what they suppressed; nor foreheads knitted 
Into the likeness of the gallows-rope they mused about enduring, or in- 
flicting. The trade signs (and they were almost as many as the shops) 
were, all, grim illustrations of Want. The butcher and the porkman 
painted up, only the leanest scrags of meat; the baker, the coarsest of 
meager loaves. The people rudely pictured as drinking in the wine- 
shops, croaked over their scanty measures of thin wine and beer, and 
were gloweringly confidential together. Nothing was represented in a 
flourishing condition, save tools and weapons; but, the cutler’s knives and 
axes were sharp and bright, the smith’s hammers were heavy, and the 
gunmaker’s stock was murderous. The crippling stones of the pavement, 
with their many little reservoirs of mud and water, had no footways, 
but broke off abruptly at the doors. The kennel, to make amends, ran 
down the middle of the street — when it ran at all: which was only 
after heavy rains, and then it ran, by many eccentric fits. Into the houses. 
Across the streets, at wide intervals, one clumsy lamp was slung by a 
rope and pulley; at night, when the lamplighter had let these down, and 
lighted, and hoisted them again, a feeble grove of dim wicks swung 
In a sickly manner overhead, as if they were at sea. Indeed they were 
at sea, and the ship and crew were in peril of tempest. 

For, the time was to come, when the gaunt scarecrows of that region 


28 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


should have watched the lamplighter, in their idleness and hunger, so 
long, as to conceive the idea of improving on his method, and hauling 
up men by those ropes and pulleys, to flare upon the darkness of their 
condition. But, the time was not come yet ; and every wind that blew 
over France shook the rags of the scarecrows in vain, for the birds, fine 
of song and feather, took no warning. 

The wine-shop was a corner shop, better than most others in its ap- 
pearance and degree, and the master of the wine-shop had stood out- 
side it, in a yellow waistcoat and green breeches, looking on at the strug- 
gle for the last wine. “ It’s not my affair,” said he, with a final shrug 
of the shoulders. “ The people from the market did it. Let them 
bring another.” 

There, his eyes happening to catch the tall joker writing up his joke, 
he called to him across the way : 

“ Say, then, my Gaspard, what do you do there? ” 

The fellow pointed to his joke with immense significance, as is often 
the way with his tribe. It missed its mark, and completely failed, as 
is often the way with his tribe too. 

“What now? Are you a subject for the mad hospital?” said the 
wine-shop keeper, crossing the road, and obliterating the jest with a 
handful of mud, picked up for the purpose, and smeared over it. “ Why 
do you write in the public streets ? Is there — tell me thou — is there 
no other place to write such words in? ” 

In his expostulation he dropped his cleaner hand (perhaps accident- 
ally, perhaps not) upon the joker’s heart. The joker rapped it with 
his own, took a nimble spring upward, and came down in a fantastic 
dancing attitude, with one of his stained shoes jerked off his foot into 
his hand, and held out. A joker of an extremely, not to say wolfishly 
practical character, he looked, under those circumstances. 

“ Put it on, put it on,” said the other. “ Call wine, wine; and finish 
there.” With that advice, he wiped his soiled hand upon the joker’s 
dress, such as it was — quite deliberately, as having dirtied the hand on 
his account; and then re-crossed the road and entered the wine-shop. 

This wine-shop keeper was a bull-necked, martial-looking man of 
thirty, and he should have been of a hot temperament, for, although it 
was a bitter day, he wore no coat, but carried one slung over his shoul- 
der. His shirt-sleeves were rolled up, too, and his brown arms were bare 
to the elbows. Neither did he wear anything more on his head than his 


THE WINE^SHOP 


29 


own crisply-curling short dark hair. He was a dark man altogether, 
with good eyes and a good bold breadth between them. Good-humored 
looking on the whole, but implacable-looking, too; evidently a man of a 
strong resolution and a set purpose; a man not desirable to be met, rush- 
ing down a narrow pass with a gulf on either side, for nothing would 
turn the man. 

Madame Defarge, his wife, sat in the shop behind the counter as he 
came in. Madame Defarge was a stout woman of about his own age, 
with a watchful eye that seldom seemed to look at anything, a large 
hand heavily ringed, a steady face, strong features, and great composure 
of manner. There was a character about Madame Defarge, from which 
one might have predicated that she did not often make mistakes against 
herself in any of the reckonings over which she presided. Madame 
Defarge being sensitive to cold, was wrapped in fur, and had a quantity 
of bright shawl twined about her head, though not to the concealment 
of her large ear-rings. Her knitting was before her, but she had laid 
it down to pick her teeth with a toothpick. Thus engaged, with her 
right elbow supported by her left hand, Madame Defarge said nothing 
when her lord came in, but coughed just one grain of cough. This, in 
combination with the lifting of her darkly defined eyebrows over her 
toothpick by the breadth of a line, suggested to her husband that he 
would do well to look round the shop among the customers, for any 
new customer who had dropped in while he stepped over the way. 

The wine-shop keeper accordingly rolled his eyes about, until they 
rested upon an elderly gentleman and a young lady, who were seated 
in a corner. Other company were there : two playing cards, two playing 
dominoes, three standing by the counter lengthening out a short supply 
of wine. As he passed behind the counter, he took notice that the elderly 
gentleman said in a look to the young lady, “ This is our man.” 

“What the devil do you do in that gallery there?” said Monsieur 
Defarge to himself; “ I don’t know you.” 

But, he feigned not to notice the two strangers, and fell into dis- 
course with the triumvirate of customers who were drinking at the 
counter. 

“ How goes it, Jacques? ” said one of these three to Monsieur De- 
farge. “Is all the spilt wine swallowed?” 

“ Every drop, Jacques,” answered Monsieur Defarge. 

When this interchange of Christian name was effected, Madame De- 


30 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


farge, picking her teeth with her toothpick, coughed another grain of 
cough, and raised her eyebrows by the breadth of another line. 

“ It is not often,” said the second of the three, addressing Monsieur 
Defarge, “ that many of these miserable beasts know the taste of wine, 
or of anything but black bread and death. Is it not so, Jacques ? ” 

“ It is so, Jacques,” Monsieur Defarge returned. 

At this second interchance of the Christian name, Madame Defarge, 
still using her toothpick with profound composure, coughed another 
grain of cough, and raised her eyebrows by the breadth of another 
line. 

The last of the three now said his say, as he put down his empty drink- 
ing vessel and smacked his lips. 

“ Ah I So much the worse ! A bitter taste it is that such poor cattle 
always have in their mouths, and hard lives they live, Jacques. Am I 
right, Jacques? ” 

“ You are right, Jacques,” was the response of Monsieur Defarge. 

This third interchange of the Christian name was completed at the 
moment when Madame Defarge put her toothpick by, kept her eyebrows 
up, and slightly rustled in her seat. 

“Hold then! True!” muttered her husband. “Gentlemen — my 
wife ! ” 

The three customers pulled off their hats to Madame Defarge, with 
three flourishes. She acknowledged their homage by bending her head, 
and giving them a quick look. Then she glanced in a casual manner 
round the wine-shop, took up her knitting with great apparent calmness 
and repose of spirit, and became absorbed in it. 

“ Gentlemen,” said her husband, who had kept his bright eye observ- 
antly upon her, “ good-day. The chamber, furnished bachelor-fashion, 
that you wished to see, and were inquiring for when I stepped out, is on 
the fifth floor. The doorway of the staircase gives on the little court- 
yard close to the left here,” pointing with his hand, “ near to the window 
of my establishment. But, now that I remember, one of you has al- 
ready been there, and can show the way. Gentlemen, adieu ! ” 

They paid for their wine, and left the place. The eyes of Monsieur 
Defarge were studying his wife at her knitting when the elderly gentle- 
man advanced from his corner, and begged the favor of a word. 

“ Willingly, sir,” said Monsieur Defarge, and quietly stepped with 
him to the door. 


THE WINE^SHOP 


31 


Their conference was very short, but very decided. Almost at the 
first word, Monsieur Defarge started and became deeply attentive. It 
had not lasted a minute, when he nodded and went out. The gentleman 
then beckoned to the young lady, and they, too, went out. Madame 
Defarge knitted with nimble fingers and steady eyebrows, and saw noth- 
ing. 

Mr. Jarvis Lorry and Miss Manette, emerging from the wine-shop 
thus, joined Monsieur Defarge in the doorway to which he had directed 
his other company just before. It opened from a stinking little black 
court-yard, and was the general public entrance to a great pile of houses, 
inhabited by a great number of people. In the gloomy tile-paved entry 
to the gloomy tile-paved staircase. Monsieur Defarge bent down on one 
knee to the child of his old master, and put her hand to his lips. It was 
a gentle action, but not at all gently done; a very remarkable trans- 
formation had come over him in a few seconds. He had no good- 
humor in his face, nor any openness of aspect left, but had become a 
secret, angry, dangerous man. 

“ It is very high ; it is a little difficult. Better to begin slowly.’’ Thus, 
Monsieur Defarge, in a stern voice, to Mr. Lorry, as they began ascend- 
ing the stairs. 

“ Is he alone? ” the latter whispered. 

“ Alone! God help him, who should be with him! ” said the other, 
in the same low voice. 

“ Is he always alone, then?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Of his own desire? ” 

“ Of his own necessity. As he was, when I first saw him after they 
found me and demanded to know if I would take him, and, at my peril, 
be discreet — as he was then, so he is now.” 

“ He is greatly changed? ” 

“ Changed ! ” 

The keeper of the wine-shop stopped to strike the wall with his hand, 
and mutter a tremendous curse. No direct answer could have been half 
so forcible. Mr. Lorry’s spirits grew heavier and heavier, as he and 
his two companions ascended higher and higher. 

Such a staircase, with its accessories, in the older and more crowded 
parts of Paris, would be bad enough now; but, at that time, it was 
vile indeed to unaccustomed and unhardened senses. Every little habita- 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


32 

tion within the great foul nest of one high building — that is to say, the 
room or rooms within every door that opened on the general staircase 
— left its own heap of refuse on its own landing, besides flinging other 
refuse from its K)wn windows. The uncontrollable and hopeless mass 
of decomposition so engendered, would have polluted the air, even if 
poverty and deprivation had not loaded it with their intangible im- 
purities; the two bad sources combined made it almost insupportable. 
Through such an atmosphere, by a steep dark shaft of dirt and poison, 
the way lay. Yielding to his own disturbance of mind, and to his young 
companion’s agitation, which became greater every instant, Mr. Jarvis 
Lorry twice stopped to rest. Each of these stoppages was made at a 
doleful grating, by which any languishing good airs that were left un- 
corrupted, seemed to escape and all spoilt and sickly vapors seemed to 
crawl in. Through the rusted bars, tastes, rather than glimpses, were 
caught of the jumbled neighborhood; and nothing within range, nearer 
or lower than the summits of the two great towers of Notre-Dame, had 
any promise on it of healthy life or wholesome aspirations. 

At last, the top of the staircase was gained, and they stopped for 
the third time. There was yet an upper staircase, of a steeper inclina- 
tion and of contracted dimensions, to be ascended, before the garret 
story was reached. The keeper of the wine-shop, always going a little 
in advance, and always going on the side which Mr. Lorry took, as 
though he dreaded to be asked any question by the young lady, turned 
himself about here, and, carefully feeling in the pockets of the coat he 
carried over his shoulder, took out a key. 

“The door is locked then, my friend?” said Mr. Lorry, surprised. 

“ Ay. Yes,” was the grim reply of Monsieur Defarge. 

“ You think it necessary to keep the unfortunate gentleman so re- 
tired?” 

“ I think it necessary to turn the key.” Monsieur Defarge whis- 
pered it closer in his ear, and frowned heavily. 

“Why?” 

“ Why! Because he has lived so long, locked up, that he would be 
frightened — rave — tear himself to pieces — die: — come to I know 
not what harm — if his door was left open.” 

“ Is it possible 1 ” exclaimed Mr. Lorry. 

“Is it possible!” repeated Defarge, bitterly. “Yes, Aad a beau* 
tiful world we live in, when it is possible, and when many other such 


THE WINESHOP 


33 

things are possible, and not only possible, but done — done, see you ! — 
under that sky there, every day. Long live the Devil. Let us go on.” 

This dialogue had been held in so very low a whisper, that not a 
word of it had reached the young lady’s ears. But, by this time she 
trembled under such strong emotion, and her face expressed such deep 
anxiety, and, above all, such dread and terror, that Mr. Lorry felt it 
incumbent on him to speak a word or two of reassurance. 

“ Courage, dear miss ! Courage I Business ! The worst will be 
over in a moment; it is but passing the room-door, and the worst is over. 
Then, all the good you bring to him, all the relief, all the happiness 
you bring to him, begin. Let our good friend here, assist you on that 
side. That’s well, friend Defarge. Com-e, now. Business, business ! ” 
They went up slowly and softly. The staircase was short, and they 
were •soon at the top. There, as it had an abrupt turn m it, they came 
all at once in sight of three men, whose heads were bent down close 
together at the side of a door, and who were intently looking into the 
room to which the door belonged, through some chinks or holes in the 
wall. On hearing footsteps close at hand, the three turned, and rose, 
and showed themselves to be the three of one name who had been 
drinking in the wine-shop. 

“ I forgot them in the surprise of your visit,” explained Monsieur 
Defarge. “ Leave us, good boys; we have business here,” 

The three glided by, and went silently down. 

There appearing to be no other door on that floor, and the keeper 
of the wine-shop going straight to this one when they were left alone, 
Mr. Lorry asked him in a whisper, with a little anger: 

“ Do you make a show of Monsieur Manette? ” 

“ I show him, in the way you have seen, to a chosen few,” 

“ Is that well? ” 

“ I think it is well.” 

“ Who are the few? How do you choose them? ” 

“ I choose them as real men, of my name — Jacques is my name — 
to whom the sight is likely to do good. Enough ; you are English ; that 
is another thing. Stay there, if you please, a little moment.” 

With an admonitory gesture to keep them back, he stooped, and 
looked in through the crevice in the wall. Soon raising his head again, 
he struck twice or thrice upon the door — evidently with no other 
object than to make a noise there. With the same intention, he drew 


34 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


the key across it, three or four times, before he put it clumsily into the 
lock, and turned it as heavily as he could. 

The door slowly opened inward under his hand, and he looked into 
the room and said something. A faint voice answered something. 
Little more than a single syllable could have been spoken on either side. 

He looked back over his shoulder, and beckoned them to enter. Mr. 
Lorry got his arm securely round the daughter’s waist, and held her; 
for he felt that she was sinking. 

“A — a — a — business, business I ” he urged, with a moisture that 
was not of business shining on his cheek. “ Come in, come in I ” 

“ I am afraid of it,” she answered, shuddering. 

“Of it? What?” 

“ I mean of him. Of my father.” 

Rendered in a manner desperate, by her state and by the beckoning 
of their conductor, he drew over his neck the arm that shook upon 
his shoulder, lifted her a little, and hurried her into the room. He 
set her down just within the door, and held her, clinging to him. 

Deffarge drew out the key, closed the door, locked it on the inside, 
took out the key again, and held it in his hand. All this he did, method- 
ically, and with as loud and harsh an accompaniment of noise as he 
could make. Finally, he walked across the room with a measured 
tread to where the window was. He stopped there, and faced round. 

The garret, built to be a depository for firewood and the like, was dim 
and dark: for, the window of dormer shape, was in truth a door in 
the roof, with a little crane over it for the hoisting up of stores 
from the street; unglazed, and closing up the middle in two pieces, like 
any other door of French construction. To exclude the cold, one half 
of this door was fast closed, and the other was opened but a very little 
way. Such a scanty portion of light was admitted through these means, 
that it was difficult, on first coming in, to see anything; and long habit 
alone could have slowly formed in any one, the ability to do any work 
requiring nicety in such obscurity. Yet, work of that kind was being 
done in the garret; for, with his back towards the door, and his face 
towards the window where the keeper of the wine-shop stood looking 
at him, a white-haired man sat on a low bench, stooping forward and 
very busy, making shoes. 




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CHAPTER VI 


THE SHOEMAKER 

G OOD-DAY I ” said Monsieur Defarge, looking down at the white 
head that bent low over the shoemaking. 

It was raised for a moment, and a very faint voice responded to the 
salutation, as if it were at a distance : 

“ Good-day I ” 

“ You are still hard at work, I see? ” 

After a long silence, the head was lifted for another moment, and 
the voice replied, “ Yes — I am working.” This time, a pair of hag- 
gard eyes had looked at the questioner, before the face had dropped 
again. 

The faintness of the voice was pitiable and dreadful. It was not 
the faintness of physical weakness, though confinement and hard fare 
no doubt had their part in It. Its deplorable peculiarity was, that it 
was the faintness of solitude and disuse. It was like the last feeble 
echo of a sound made long and long ago. So entirely had It lost the 
life and resonance of the human voice, that it affected the senses like 
a once beautiful color faded away into a poor weak stain. So sunken 
and suppressed It was, that it was like a voice underground. So expres- 
sive it was, of a hopeless and lost creature, that a famished traveler, 
wearied out by lonely wandering In a wilderness, would have remem- 
bered home and friends In such a tone before lying down to die. 

Some minutes of silent work had passed: and the haggard eyes had 
looked up again: not with any Interest or curiosity, but with a dull 
mechanical perception, beforehand' that the spot where the only visitor 
they were aware of had stood, was not yet empty. 

“ I want,” said Defarge, who had not removed his gaze from the 
shoemaker, “ to let In a little more light here. You can bear a little 
more? ” 

The shoemaker stopped his work; looked with a vacant air of listen- 
ing, at the floor on one side of him; then similarly, at the floor on the 
other side of him; then, upward at the speaker. 

35 


36 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


What did you say? ” 

“ You can bear a little more light? ” 

“ I must bear it, if you let it in.” (Laying the palest shadow of a 
stress upon the second word.) 

The opened half-door was opened a little further, and secured at 
that angle for the time. A broad ray of light fell into the garret, and 
showed the workman with an unfinished shoe upon his lap, pausing 
in his labor. His few common tools and various scraps of leather 
were at his feet and on his bench. He had a white beard, raggedly cut, 
but not very long, a hollow face, and exceedingly bright eyes. The hol- 
lowness and thinness of his face would have caused them to look large, 
under his yet dark eyebrows and his confused white hair, though they 
had been really otherwise; but, they were naturally large, and looked 
unnaturally so. His yellow rags of shirt lay open at the throat, and 
showed his body to be withered and worn. He, and his old canvas 
frock, and his loose stockings, and all his poor tatters of clothes, 
had, in a long seclusion from direct light and air, faded down to such 
a dull uniformity of parchment-yellow, that it would have been hard 
to say which was which. 

He had put up a hand between his eyes* and the light, and the very 
bones of it seemed transparent. So he sat, with a steadfastly vacant 
gaze, pausing in his work. He never looked at the figure before him, 
without first looking down on this side of himself, then on that, as if 
he had lost the habit of associating place with sound; he never spoke, 
without first wandering in this manner, and forgetting to speak. 

“ Are you going to finish that pair of shoes to-day? ” asked Defarge^- 
motioning to Mr. Lorry to come forward. 

“What did you say?” 

“ Do you mean to finish that pair of shoes to-day? ” 

“ I can’t say that I mean to. I suppose so. I don’t know.” 

But, the question reminded him of his work, and he bent over it 
again. 

Mr. Lorry came silently forward, leaving the daughter by the door. 
When he had stood, for a minute or two, by the side of Defarge, the 
shoemaker looked up. He showed no surprise at seeing another figure, 
but the unsteady fingers of one of his hands strayed to his lips as he 
looked at it (his lips and his nails were of the same pale lead-color) , and 


THE SHOEMAKER 


37 

then the hand dropped to his work, and he once more bent over the 
shoe. The look and the action had occupied but an instant. 

“ You have a visitor, you see,’’ said Monsieur Defarge. 

“ What did you say? ” 

“ Here is a visitor.” 

The shoemaker looked up as before, but without removing a hand 
from his work. 

“Cornel” said Defarge. “Here is monsieur, who knows a well- 
made shoe when he sees one. Show him that shoe you are working at. 
Take it, monsieur.” 

Mr. Lorry took it in his hand. 

“ Tell monseiur what kind of shoe it is, and the maker’s name.” 

There was a longer pause than usual, before the shoemaker replied: 

“ I forget what it was you asked me. What did you say? ” 

“ I said, couldn’t you describe the kind of shoe, for monsieur’s infor- 
mation? ” 

“ It is a lady’s shoe. It is a young lady’s walking-shoe. It is in the 
present mode. I never saw the mode. I have had a pattern in my 
hand.” He glanced at the shoe with some little passing touch of pride. 

“ And the maker’s name? ” said Defarge. 

Now that he had no work to hold, he laid the knuckles of the right 
hand in the hollow of the left, and then the knuckles of the left hand 
in the hollow of the right, and then passed a hand across his bearded 
chin, and so on in regular changes, without a moment’s intermission. 
The task of recalling him from the vacancy into which he always sank 
when he had spoken, was like recalling some very weak person from 
a swoon, or endeavoring, in the hope of some disclosure, to stay the 
spirit of a fast-dying man. 

“ Did you ask me for my name? ” 

“ Assuredly I did.” 

“ One Hundred and Five, North Tower.” 

“Is that all?” 

“ One Hundred and Five, North Tower.” 

With a weary sound that was not a sigh, nor a groan, he bent to 
work again, until the silence was again broken. 

“You are not a shoemaker by trade?” said Mr. Lorry, looking 
steadfastly at him. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


38 

His haggard eyes turned to Defarge as if he would have transferred 
the question to him: but as no help came from that quarter, they turned 
back on the questioner when they had sought the ground. 

“ I am not a shoemaker by trade? No, I was not a shoemaker by 
trade. I — I learnt it here. I taught myself. I asked leave to — ” 

He lapsed away, even for minutes, ringing those measured changes 
on his hands the whole time. His eyes came slowly back, at last, to the 
face from which they had wandered ; when they rested on it, he started, 
and resumed, in the manner of a sleeper that moment awake, reverting 
to a subject of last night. 

“ I asked leave to teach myself, and I got it with much difficulty after 
a long while, and I have made shoes ever since.” 

As he held out his hand for the shoe that had been taken from him, 
Mr. Lorry said, still looking steadfastly in his face : 

“ Monsieur Manette, do you remember nothing of me? ” 

The shoe dropped to the ground, and he sat looking fixedly at the 
questioner*. 

“Monsieur Manette;” Mr. Lorry laid his hand upon Defarge’s 
arm; “ do you remember nothing of this man? Look at him. Look at 
me. Is there no old banker, no old business, no old servant, no old 
time, rising in your mind. Monsieur Manette?” 

As the captive of many years sat looking fixedly, by turns, at Mr. 
Lorry and at Defarge, some long obliterated marks of an actively 
intent intelligence in the middle of the forehead, gradually forced 
themselves through the black mist that had fallen on him. They were 
over-clouded again, they were fainter, they were gone; but they had 
been there. And so exactly was the expression repeated on the fair 
young face of her who had crept along the wall to a point where she 
could see him, and where she now stood looking at him, with hands 
which at first had been only raised in frightened compassion, if not 
even to keep him off and shut out the! sight of him, but which were now 
extending towards him, trembling with eagerness to lay the spectral 
face upon her warm young breast, and love it back to life and hope 
— so exactly was the expression repeated (though in stronger char- 
acters) on her fair young face, that it looked as though it had passed 
like a moving light, from him to her. 

Darkness had fallen on him in its place. He looked at the two, 


THE SHOEMAKER 


39 


less and less attentively, and his eyes in gloomy abstraction sought the 
ground and looked about him in the old way. Finally, with a deep 
long sigh, he took the shoe up, and resumed his work. 

“ Have you recognized him, monsieur? ” asked Defarge in a whisper. 

“Yes; for a moment. At first I thought it quite hopeless, but I have 
unquestionably seen, for a single moment, the face that I once knew 
so well. Hush ! Let us draw further back. Hush ! ” 

She had moved from the wall of the garret, very near to the bench 
on which he sat. There was something awful in his unconsciousness 
of the figure that could have put out its hand and touched him as he 
stooped over his labor. 

Not a word was spoken, not a sound was made. She stood, like a 
spirit, beside him, and he bent over his work. 

It happened, at length, that he had occasion to change the instrument 
in his hand, for his shoemaker’s knife. It lay on that side of him 
which was not the side on which she stood. He had taken it up, and 
was stooping to work again, when his eyes caught the skirt of her 
dress. He raised them, and saw her face. The two spectators started 
forward, but she stayed them with a motion of her hand. She had 
no fear of his striking at her with the knife, though they had. 

He stared at her with a fearful look, and after a while his lips began 
to form some words, though no sound proceeded from them. By 
degrees, in the pauses of his quick and labored breathing he was heard 
to say: 

“What is this?” 

With the tears streaming down her face, she put her two hands 
to her lips, and kissed them to him; then clasped them on her breast, 
as if she laid his ruined head there. 

“ You are not the gaoler’s daughter? ” 

She sighed “No.” 

“ Who are you? ” 

Not yet trusting the tones of her voice, she sat down on the bench 
beside him. He recoiled, but she laid her hand upon his arm. A 
strange thrill struck him when she did so, and visibly passed over his 
frame; he laid the knife down softly, as he sat staring at her. 

Her golden hair, which she wore in long curls, had been hurriedly 
pushed aside, and fell down over her neck. Advancing his hand by 


40 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


little and little, he took it up and looked at it. In the midst of the 
action he went astray, and, with another deep sigh, fell to work at his 
shoemaking. 

But not for long. Releasing his arm, she laid her hand upon his 
shoulder. After looking doubtfully at it, two or three times, as if to 
be sure that it was really there, he laid down his work, put his hand 
to his neck, and took off a blackened string with a scrap of folded 
rag attached to it. He opened this, carefully, on his knee, and it con- 
tained a very little quantity of hair: not more than one or two long 
golden hairs, which he had, in some old day, wound off upon his finger. 

He took her hair into his hand again, and looked closely at it. “ It 
is the same. How can it be! When was it! How was it! ” 

As the concentrating expression returned to his forehead, he seemed 
to become conscious that it was in hers too. He turned her full to the 
light, and looked at her. 

“ She had laid her head upon my shoulder, that night when I was 
summoned out — she had a fear of my going, though I had none — 
and when I was brought to the North Tower they found these upon 
my sleeve. ‘You will leave me them? They can never help me to 
escape in the body, though they may in the spirit.’ Those were the 
words I said. I remember them very well.” 

He formed this speech with his lips many times before he could 
utter it. But when he did find spoken words for it, they came to him 
coherently, though slowly. 

“ How was this? — Was it you? ” 

Once more, the two spectators started, as he turned upon her with 
a frightful suddenness. But she sat perfectly still in his grasp, and 
only said, in a low voice, “ I entreat you, good gentlemen, do not come 
near us, do not speak, do not move ! ” 

“Hark!” he exclaimed. “Whose voice was that?” 

His hands released her as he uttered this cry, and went up to his 
white hair, which they tore in a frenzy. It died out, as everything 
but his shoemaking did die out of him, and he refolded his little packet 
and tried to secure it in his breast: but he still looked at her, and 
gloomily shook his head. 

“ No, no, no; you are too young, too blooming. It can’t be. See 
what the prisoner is. These are not the hands she knew, this is not 
the face she knew, this is not a voice she ever heard. No, no. She 


THE SHOEMAKER 


41 


was — and He was — before the slow years of the North Tower — 
ages ago. What is your name, my gentle angel? ” 

^ Hailing his softened tone and manner, his daughter fell upon her 
knees before him, with her appealing hands upon his breast. 

“ O, sir, at another time you shall know my name, and who my 
mother was, and who my father, and how I never knew their hard, 
hard history. But I cannot tell you at this time, and I cannot tell you 
here. All that I may tell you, here and now, is, that I pray to you to 
touch me and to bless me. Kiss me, kiss me! O my dear, my dear I ” 
His cold white head mingled with her radiant hair, which warmed 
and lighted it as though it were the light of Freedom shining on him. 

‘‘ If you hear in my voice — I don’t know that it is so, but I hope it is 
— if you hear in my voice any resemblance to a voice that once was 
sweet music in your ears, weep for it, weep for it! If you touch, in 
touching my hair, anything that recalls a beloved head that lay on your 
breast when you were young and free, weep for it, weep for it! If, 
when I hint to you of a Home that is before us, where I will be true 
to you with all my duty and with all my faithful service, I bring back 
the remembrance of a Home long desolate, while your poor heart 
pined away, weep for it, weep for it ! ” 

She held him closer rbund the neck, and rocked him on her breast 
like a child. 

“ If, when I tell you, dearest dear, that your agony is over, and 
that I have come here to take you from it, and that we go to England 
to be at peace and at rest, I cause you to think of your useful life laid 
waste, and of our native France so wicked to you, weep for it, weep 
for it! And if, when I shall tell you of my name, and of my father 
who is living, and of my mother who is dead, you learn that I have 
to kneel to my honored father, and implore his pardon for having 
never for his sake striven all day and lain awake and wept all night, 
because the love of my poor mother hid his torture from me, weep for 
it, weep for it! Weep for her, then, and for me! Good gentlemen, 
thank God ! I feel his sacred tears upon my face, and his sobs strike 
against my heart. O, see! Thank God for us, thank God! ” 

He had sunk in her arms, and his face dropped on her breast: a 
sight so touching, yet so terrible in the tremendous wrong and suffer- 
ing which had gone before it, that the two beholders covered their faces. 
When the quiet of the garret had been long undisturbed, and his heav- 


42 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


ing breast and shaken form had long yielded to the calm that must 
follow all storms — emblem to humanity, of the rest and silence into 
which the storm called life must hush at last — they came forward to 
raise the father and daughter from the ground. He had gradually 
dropped to the floor, and lay there in a lethargy, worn out. She had 
nestled down with him, that his head might lie upon her arm; and her 
hair drooping over him curtained him from the light. 

“ If, without disturbing him,” she said, raising her hand to Mr. 
Lorry as he stooped over them, after repeated blowings of his nose, 
“ all could be arranged for our leaving Paris at once, so that, from 
the very door, he could be taken away — ” 

“ But, consider. Is he fit for the journey?” asked Mr. Lorry. 

“ More fit for that, I think, than to remain in this city, so dreadful 
to him.” 

” It is true,” said Defarge, who was kneeling to look on and hear. 
“More than that; Monsieur Manette is, for all reasons, best out of 
France. Say, shall I hire a carriage and post-horses? ” 

“ That’s business,” said Mr. Lorry, resuming on the shortest notice 
his methodical manners; “ and if business is to be done, I had better 
do it.” 

“ Then be so kind,” urged Miss Manette, “ as to leave us here. 
You see how composed he has become, and you cannot be afraid to 
leave him with me now. Why should you be? If you will lock the 
door to secure us from interruption, I do not doubt that you will find 
him, when you come back, as quiet as you leave him. In any case, 
I will take care of him until you return, and then we will remove 
him straight.” 

Both Mr. Lorry and Defarge were rather disinclined to this course, 
and in favor of one of them remaining. But, as there were not only 
carriage and horses to be seen to, but traveling papers; and as time 
pressed, for the day was drawing to an end, it came at last to their 
hastily dividing the business that was necessary to be done, and hurry- 
ing away to do it. 

Then, as the darkness closed in, the daughter laid her head down on 
the hard ground close at her father’s side, and watched him. The 
darkness deepened and deepened, and they both lay quiet, until a 
light gleamed through the chinks in the wall. 


THE SHOEMAKER 


43 


Mr. Lorry and Monsieur Defarge had made all ready for the jour- 
ney, and had brought with them, besides traveling cloaks and wrappers, 
bread and meat, wine, and hot coffee. Monsieur Defarge put this 
provender, and the lamp he carried, on the shoemaker’s bench (there 
was nothing else in the garret but a pallet bed) , and he and Mr. Lorry 
roused the captive, and assisted him to his feet. 

No human intelligence could have read the mysteries of his mind, 
in the sacred blank w’onder of his face. Whether he knew what had 
happened, whether he recollected what they had said to him, whether 
he knew that he was free, were questions which no sagacity could 
have solved. They tried speaking to him; but, he was so confused, 
and so very slow to answer, that they took fright at his bewilderment, 
and agreed for the time to tamper with him no more. He had a wild, 
lost manner of occasionally clasping his head in his hands, that had 
not been seen in him before; yet, he had some pleasure in the mere 
sound of his daughter’s voice, and invariably turned to it when she 
spoke. 

In the submissive way of one long accustomed to obey under coercion, 
he ate and drank what they gave him to eat and drink, and put on the 
cloak and other wrappings, that they gave him to wear. He readily 
responded to his daughter’s drawing her arm through his, and took — 
and kept — her hand in both his own. 

They began to descend; Monsieur Defarge going first with the lamp, 
Mr. Lorry closing the little procession. They had not traversed many 
steps of the long main staircase when he stopped, and stared at the roof 
and round at the walls. 

“You remember the place, my father? You remember coming up 
here? ” 

“ What did you say? ” 

But, before she could repeat the question, he murmured an answer 
as if she had repeated it. 

“ Remember? No, I don’t remember. It was so very long ago.’’ 

That he had no recollection whatever of his having been brought 
from his prison to that house, was apparent to them. They heard him 
mutter, “ One Hundred and Five, North Tower ”; and when he looked 
about him, it evidently was for the strong fortress-walls which had long 
encompassed him. On their reaching the courtyard he instinctively 


44 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


altered his tread, as being in expectation of a drawbridge; and when 
there was no drawbridge, and he saw the carriage waiting in the open 
street, he dropped his daughter’s hand and clasped his head again. 

No crowd was about the door; no people were discernible at any 
of the many windows; not even a chance passer-by was in the street. 
An unnatural silence and desertion reigned there. Only one soul was 
to be seen, and that was Madame Defarge — who leaned against the 
door-post, knitting, and saw nothing. 

The prisoner had got into a coach, and his daughter had followed 
him, when Mr. Lorry’s feet were arrested on the step by his asking, 
miserably, for his shoemaking tools and the unfinished shoes. Madame 
Defarge immediately called to her husband that she would get them, 
and went, knitting, out of the lamplight, through the court-yard. She 
quickly brought them down and handed them in ; — and immediately 
afterwards leaned against the door-post, knitting, and saw nothing. 

Defarge got upon the box, and gave the word “ To the Barrier ! ” 
The postilion cracked his whip, and they clattered away under the 
feeble over-swinging lamps. 

Under the over-swinging lamps — swinging ever brighter in the better 
streets, and ever dimmer in the worst — and by lighted shops, gay 
crowds, illuminated coffee-houses, and theater-doors, to one of the 
city gates. Soldiers with lanterns, at the guard-house there. “ Your 
papers, travelers! ” “ See here then. Monsieur the Officer,” said De- 

farge, getting down, and taking him gravely apart, “ these are the 
papers of monsieur inside, with the white head. They were consigned 
to me, with him, at the — ” He dropped his voice, there was a flutter 
among the military lanterns, and one of them being handed into the 
coach by an arm in uniform, the eyes connected with the arm looked, 
not an every day or an every night look, at monsieur with the white 
head. “ It is well. Forward! ” from the uniform. “ Adieu! ” from 
Defarge. And sro, under a short grove of feebler and feebler over- 
swinging lamps, out under the great grove of stars. 

Beneath that arth of unmoved and eternal lights; some, so remote 
from this little earth that the learned tell us it is doubtful whether 
their rays have even yet discovered it, as a point in space where any- 
thing is suffered or done: the shadows of the night were broad and 
black. All through the cold and restless interval, until dawn, they once 
more whispered in the ears of Mr. Jarvis Lorry — sitting opposite the 


THE SHOEMAKER 


45 


buried man who had been dug out, and wondering what subtle powers 
were forever lost to him, and what were capable of restoration — the 
old inquiry: 

“ I hope you care to be recalled to life? 

And the old answer: 

“I can’t say.”’ 


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THE GOLDEN THREAD 




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CHAPTER I 


FIVE YEARS LATER 


ELLSON’S Bank by Temple Bar was an old-fashioned place, even 



1 in the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty. It was very 
small, very dark, very ugly, very incommodious. It was an old-fash- 
ioned place, moreover, in the moral attitude that the partners in the 
House were proud of its smallness, proud of its darkness, proud of its 
ugliness, proud of its incommodiousness. They were even boastful of 
its eminence in those particulars, and were fired by an express conviction 
that, if it were less objectionable, it would be less respectable. This 
was no passive belief, but an active weapon which they flashed at more 
convenient places of business. Tellson’s (they said) wanted no elbow- 
room, Tellson’s wanted no light, Tellson’s wanted no embellishment. 
Noakes and Co.’s might, or Snooks Brothers’ might; but Tellson’s, thank 
Heaven ! — 

Any one of these partners would have disinherited his son on the 
question of rebuilding Tellson’s. In this respect the House was much 
on a par with the Country; which did very often disinherit its sons for 
suggesting improvements in laws and customs that had long been highly 
objectionable, but were only the more respectable. 

Thus it had come to pass, that Tellson’s was the triumphant perfec- 
tion of inconvenience. After bursting open a door of idiotic obstinacy 
with a weak rattle in its throat, you fell into Tellson’s down two steps, 
and came to your senses in a miserable little shop, with two little coun- 
ters, where the oldest of men made your check shake as if the wind 
rustled it, while they examined the signature by the dingiest of windows, 
which were always under a shower-bath of mud from Fleet Street, and 
which were made the dingier by their own iron bars proper, and the 
heavy shadow of Temple Bar. If your business necessitated your see- 
ing “ the House,” you were put into a species of Condemned Hold at 
the back, where you meditated on a misspent life, until the House 
came with its hands in its pockets, and you could hardly blink at it in 


49 


50 A TALE OF TWO CITIES 

the dismal twilight. TTour money came out of, or went into, wormy 
old wooden drawers, particles of which flew up your nose and down 
your throat when they were opened and shut. Your bank-notes had 
a musty odor, as if they were fast decomposing into rags again. Yodr 
plate was stowed away among the neighboring cesspools, and evil comr 
munications corrupted its good polish in a day or two. Your deeds 
got into extemporized strong-rooms made of kitchens and sculleries, and 
fretted all the fat out of their parchments into the banking-house air. 
Your lighter boxes of family papers went upstairs into a Barmecide 
room, that always had a great dining-table in it and never had a dinner, 
and where, even in the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty, 
the first letters written to you by your old love, or by your little chil- 
dren, were but newly released from the horror of being ogled through 
the windows, by the heads exposed on Temple Bar with an insensate 
brutality and ferocity worthy of Abyssinia or Ashantee. 

But indeed, at that time, putting to death was a recipe much in 
vogue with all trades and professions, and not least of all with Tell- 
son’s. Death is Nature’s remedy for all things, and why not Legisla- 
tion’s? Accordingly, the forger was put to Death; the utterer of a 
bad note was put to Death; the unlawful opener of a letter was put to 
Death; the purloiner of forty shillings and sixpence was put to Death; 
the holder of a horse at Tellson’s Door, who made off with it, was 
put to Death; the coiner of a bad shilling was put to Death; the sounders 
of three-fourths of the notes in the whole gamut of Crime, were put 
to Death. Not that it did the least good in the way of prevention — it 
might almost have been worth remarking that the fact was exactly 
the reverse — but, it cleared off (as to this world) the trouble of each 
particular case, and left nothing else connected with it to be looked 
after. Thus Tellson’s, in its day, like greater places of business, its 
contemporaries, had taken so many lives, that, if the heads laid low 
before it had been ranged on Temple Bar instead of being privately 
disposed of, they would probably have excluded what little light the 
ground floor had, in a rather significant manner. 

Cramped in all kinds of dim cupboards and hutches at Tellson’s, the 
oldest of men carried on the business gravely. When they took a young 
man into Tellson’s London house, they hid him somewhere till he was 
old. They kept him in a dark place, like a cheese, until he had the full 
Tellson flavor and blue-mould upon him. Then only was he permitted 


FIVE YEARS LATER 


51 


to be seen, spectacularly poring over large books, and casting his 
breeches and gaiters into the general weight of the establishment. 

Outside Tellson’s — never by any means in It, unless called in — was 
an odd-job-man, and occasional porter and messenger, who served as 
the live sign of the house. He was never absent during business hours, 
unless upon an errand, and then he was represented by his son : a grisly 
urchin of twelve, who was his express Image. People understood that 
Tellson’s, In a stately way, tolerated the odd-job-man. The house had 
always tolerated some person in that capacity, and time and tide had 
drifted this person to the post. His surname was Cruncher, and on 
the youthful occasion of his renouncing by proxy the works of dark- 
ness, In the easterly parish church of Houndsditch, he had received the 
added appellation of Jerry. 

The scene was Mr. Cruncher’s private lodging In Hanging-sword 
Alley, Whitefriars; the time, half-past seven of the clock on a windy 
March morning, Anno Domini seventeen hundred and eighty. (Mr. 
Cruncher himself always spoke of the year of our Lord as Anna Dom- 
inoes; apparently under the Impression that the Christian era dated 
from the Invention of a popular game, by a lady who had bestowed 
her name upon it.) 

Mr. Cruncher’s apartments were not In a savory neighborhood, and 
were but two in number, even if a closet with a single pane of glass in 
it might be counted as one. But they were very decently kept. Early 
as it was, on the windy March morning, the room In which he lay a-bed 
was already scrubbed throughout; and between the cups and saucers 
arranged for breakfast, and the lumbering deal table, a very clean 
white cloth was spread. 

Mr. Cruncher reposed under a patchwork counterpane like a Har- 
lequin at home. At first, he slept heavily, but, by degrees, began to 
roll and surge In bed, until he rose above the surface, with his spiky 
hair looking as if it must tear the sheets to ribbons. At which junc- 
ture, he exclaimed, in a voice of dire exasperation: 

‘‘ Bust me, if she ain’t at it agin! ” 

A woman of orderly and industrious appearance rose from her knees 
in a corner, with sufficient haste and trepidation to show that she was 
the person referred to. 

“What!” said Mr. Cruncher, looking out of bed for a boot. 
“ You’re at It agin, are you? ” 


52 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


After hailing the morn with this second salutation, he threw a boot 
at the woman as a third. It was a very muddy boot, and may> intro- 
duce the odd circumstance connected with Mr. Cruncher’s domestic 
economy, that, whereas he often came home after banking hours with 
clean boots, he often got up next morning to find the same boots cov- 
ered with clay. 

“ What,” said Mr. Cruncher, varying his apostrophe after missing 
his mark — “what are you up to, Aggerawayter ? ” 

“ I was only saying my prayers.” 

“ Saying your prayers! You’re a nice woman! What do you mean 
by flopping yourself down and praying agin me? ” 

“ I was not praying against you; I was praying for you.” 

“ You weren’t. And if you were, I won’t be took the liberty with. 
Here! your mother’s a nice woman, young Jerry, going a praying agin 
your father’s prosperity. You’re got a dutiful mother, you have, my 
son. You’ve got a religious mother, you have, my boy: going and 
flopping herself down, and praying that the bread-and-butter may be 
snatched out of the mouth of her only child.” 

Master Cruncher (who was in his shirt) took this very ill, and, 
turning to his mother, strongly deprecated any praying away of his 
personal board. 

“ And what do you suppose, you conceited female,” said Mr. 
Cruncher, with unconscious inconsistency, “ that the worth of yotir 
prayers may be? Name the price that you put your prayers at! ” 

“ They only come from the heart, Jerry. They are worth no more 
than that.” 

“ Worth no more than that,” repeated Mr. Cruncher. “ They ain’t 
worth much, then. Whether or no, I won’t be prayed agin, I tell you. 
I can’t afford it. I’m not a going to be made unlucky by your sneak- 
ing. If you must go flopping yourself down, flop in favor of your 
husband and child, and not in opposition to ’em. If I had had any but 
a unnat’ral wife, and this poor boy had had any but a unnat’ral mother, 
I might have made some money last week instead of being counterprayed 
and countermined and religiously circumwented into the worst of luck. 
B-u-u-ust me ! ” said Mr. Cruncher, who all this time had been putting 
on his clothes, “ if I ain’t, what with piety and one blowed thing and 
another, been choused this last week into as bad luck as ever a poor 
devil of a honest tradesman met with! Young Jerry, dress yourself. 


FIVE YEARS LATER 


53 


my boy, and while I clean my boots keep a eye upon your mother now 
and then, and if you see any signs of more flopping, give me a call. 
For, I tell you,” here he addressed his wife once more, “ I won’t be 
gone agin, in this manner. I am as rickety as a hackney-coach. I’m as 
sleepy as laudanum, my lines is strained to that degree that I shouldn’t 
know, if it wasn’t for the pain in ’em, which was me and which some- 
body else, yet I’m none the better for it in pocket; and it’s my sus- 
picion that you’ve been at it from morning to night to prevent me 
from being the better for it in pocket, and I won’t put up with it, 
Aggerawayter, and what do you say now ! ” 

Growling, in addition, such phrases as “Ah! yes! You’re religious, 
too. You wouldn’t put yourself in opposition to the interests of your 
husband and child, would you? Not you!” and throwing off other 
sarcastic sparks from the whirling grindstone of his indignation, Mr. 
Cruncher betook himself to his boot-cleaning and his general prepara- 
tion for business. In the meantime, his son, whose head was garnished 
with tender spikes, and whose young eyes stood close by one another, 
as his father’s did, kept the required watch upon his mother. He 
greatly disturbed that poor woman at intervals, by darting out of his 
sleeping closet, where he made his toilet, with a suppressed cry of 
“ You are going to flop, mother. — Halloa, father ! ” and, after raising 
this fictitious alarm, darting in again with an undutiful grin. 

Mr. Cruncher’s temper was not at all improved when he came to his 
breakfast. He resented Mrs. Cruncher’s saying grace with particular 
animosity. 

“ Now, Aggerawayter! What are you up to? At it agin? ” 

His wife explained that she had merely “ asked a blessing.” 

“ Don’t do it ! ” said Mr. Cruncher, looking about, as if he rather 
expected to see the loaf disappear under the efficacy of his wife’s peti- 
tions. “ I ain’t a going to be blest out of house and home. I won’t 
have my wittles blest off my table. Keep still ! ” 

Exceedingly red-eyed and grim, as if he had been up all night at a 
party which had taken anything but a convivial turn, Jerry Cruncher 
worried his breakfast rather than ate it, growling over it like any 
four-footed inmate of a menagerie. Towards nine o’clock he smoothed 
his ruffled aspect, and, presenting as respectable and business-like an 
exterior as he could overlay his natural self with, issued forth to the 
occupation of the day. 


54 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


It could scarcely be called a trade, in spite of his favorite description 
of himself as “ a honest tradesman.” His stock consisted of a wooden 
stool, made out of a broken-backed chair cut down, which stool, young 
Jerry, walking at his father’s side, carried every morning to beneath 
the banking-house window that was nearest Temple Bar: where, with 
the addition of the first handful of straw that could be gleaned from 
any passing vehicle to keep the cold and wet from the odd-job-man’s 
feet, it formed the encampment for the day. On this post of his, Mr. 
Cruncher was as well known to Fleet Street and the Temple, as the 
Bar itself, — and was almost as ill-looking. 

Encamped at a quarter before nine, in good time to touch his three- 
cornered hat to the oldest of men as they passed in to Tellson’s, Jerry 
took up his station on this windy March morning, with young Jerry 
standing by him, when not engaged in making forays through the Bar, 
to inflict bodily and mental injuries of an acute description on passing 
boys who were small enough for his amiable purpose. Father and son, 
extremely like each other, looking silently on at the morning traffic in 
Fleet Street, with their two heads as near to one another as the two 
eyes of each were, bore a considerable resemblance to a pair of mon- 
keys. The resemblance was not lessened by the accidental circum- 
stances, that the mature Jerry bit and spat out straw, while the twink- 
ling eyes of the youthful Jerry were as restlessly watchful of him as of 
everything else in Fleet Street. 

The head of one of the regular indoor messengers attached to Tell- 
son’s establishment was put through the door, and the word was given : 

“ Porter wanted ! ” 

“ Hooray, father! Here’s an early job to begin with! ” 

Having thus given his parent God speed, young Jerry seated him- 
self on the stool, entered on his reversionary interest in the straw his 
father had been chewing, and cogitated. 

“ Al-ways rusty! His fingers is al-ways rusty!” muttered young 
Jerry. “Where does my father get all that iron rust from? He 
don’t get no iron rust here! ” 




CHAPTER II 

A SIGHT 

**"^7^011 know the Old Bailey well, no doubt? ” said one of the oldest 

A of clerks to Jerry the messenger. 

“ Ye-es, sir,” returned Jerry, in something of a dogged manner. “ I 
do know the Bailey.” 

“ Just so. And you know Mr. Lorry.” 

“ I know Mr. Lorry, sir, much better than I know the Bailey. Much 
better,” said Jerry, not unlike a reluctant witness at the establishment 
in question, “ than I, as a honest tradesman, wish to know the Bailey.” 

“ Very well. Find the door where the witnesses go in, and show 
the door-keeper this note for Mr. Lorry. He will then let you in.” 

“ Into the court, sir? ” 

“ Into the court.” 

Mr. Cruncher’s eyes seemed to get a little closer to one another, and 
to interchange the inquiry, “What do you think of this?” 

“ Am I to wait in the court, sir? ” he asked, as the result of that con- 
ference. 

“ I am going to tell you. The door-keeper will pass the note to 
Mr. Lorry, and do you make any gesture that will attract Mr. Lorry’s 
attention, and show him where you stand. Then what you have to do, 
is, to remain there until he wants you.” 

“Is that all, sir?” 

“ That is all. He wishes to have a messenger at hand. This is to 
tell him you are there.” 

As the ancient clerk deliberately folded and superscribed the note, 
Mr. Cruncher, after surveying him in silence until he came to the 
^ blotting-paper stage, remarked : 

“I suppose they’ll be trying Forgeries this morning?” 

“ Treason ! ” 

“ That’s quartering,” said Jerry. “ Barbarous! ” 

“ It is the law,” remarked the ancient clerk, turning his surprised 
spectacles upon him. “ It’s the law.” 

ss 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


56 

“ It’s hard in the law to spile a man, I think. It’s hard enough to 
kill him, but it’s wery hard to spile him, sir.” 

“ Not at all,” returned the ancient clerk. “ Speak well of the law. 
Take care of your chest and voice, my good friend, and leave the law 
to take care of itself. I give you that advice.” 

“ It’s the damp, sir, what settles on my chest and voice,” said Jerry. 
“ I leave you to judge what a damp way of earning a living mine is.” 

“ Well, well,” said the old clerk; “ we all have our various ways of 
gaining a livelihood. Some of us have damp ways, and some of us 
have dry ways. Here is the letter. Go along.” 

Jerry took the letter, and, remarking to himself with less internal 
deference than he made an outward show of, “ You are a lean old one, 
too,” made his bow, informed his son, in passing, of his destination, 
and went his way. 

They hanged at Tyburn, in those days, so the street outside Newgate 
had not obtained one infamous notoriety that has since attached to it. 
But, the gaol was a vile place, in which most kinds of debauchery and 
villainy were practiced, and where dire diseases were bred, that came 
into court with the prisoners, and sometimes rushed straight from the 
dock at my Lord Chief Justice himself, and pulled him off the bench. 
It had more than once happened, that the Judge in the black cap pro- 
nounced his own doom as certainly as the prisoner’s, and even died 
before him. For the rest, the Old Bailey was famous as a kind of 
deadly inn-yard, from which pale travelers set out continually, in carts 
and coaches, on a violent passage into the other world; traversing some 
two miles and a half of public street and road, and shaming few good 
citizens, if any. So powerful is use, and so desirable to be good use in 
the beginning. It was famous, too, for the pillory, a wise old institu- 
tion, that inflicted a punishment of which no one could foresee the 
extent; also, for the whipping-post, another dear old institution, very 
humanizing and softening to behold in action; also, for extensive trans- 
actions in blood-money, another fragment of ancestral wisdom, systemat- 
ically leading to the most frightful mercenary crimes that could be 
committed under Heaven. Altogether, the Old Bailey, at that 
date, was a choice illustration of the precept, that “ Whatever is is 
right;” an aphorism that would be as final as it is lazy, did it not 
include the troublesome consequence, that nothing that ever was, was 
wrong. 


A SIGHT 


’57 


Making his way through the tainted crowd, dispersed up and down 
this hideous scene of action, with the skill of a man accustomed to 
make his way quietly, the messenger found out the door he sought, and 
handed in his letter through a trap in it. For, people then paid to see 
the play at the Old Bailey, just as they paid to see the play in Bedlam 
— only the former entertainment was much the dearer. Therefore, 
all the Old Bailey doors were well guarded — except, indeed, the social 
doors by which the criminals got there, and those were always left wide 
open. 

After some delay and demur, the door grudgingly turned on its 
hinges a very little way, and allowed Mr. Jerry Cruncher to squeeze 
himself into court. 

“ What’s on? ” he asked, in a whisper, of the man he found himself 
next to. 

“ Nothing yet.” 

“ What’s coming on? ” 

“ The Treason case.” 

“ The quartering one, eh? ” 

“ Ah! ” returned the man, with a relish; “ he’ll be drawn on a hurdle 
to be half hanged, and then he’ll be taken down and sliced before his 
own face, and then his insides will be taken out and burnt while he 
looks on, and then his head will be chopped off, and he’ll be cut into 
quarters. That’s the sentence.” 

“ If he’s found guilty, you mean to say?” Jerry added, by way of 
proviso. 

“ Oh 1 they’ll find him guilty,” said the other. “ Don’t be afraid 
of .that.” 

Mr. Cruncher’s attention was here diverted to the door-keeper, whom 
he saw making his way to Mr. Lorry, with the note in his hand. Mr. 
Lorry sat at a table, among the gentlemen in wigs: not far from a 
wigged gentleman, the prisoner’s counsel, who had a great bundle of 
papers before him : and nearly opposite another wigged gentleman with 
his hands in his pockets, whose whole attention, when Mr. Cruncher 
looked at him then or afterwards, seemed to be concentrated on the 
ceiling of the court. After some gruff coughing and rubbing of his chin 
and signing with his hand, Jerry attracted the notice of Mr. Lorry, 
who had stood up to look for him, and who quietly nodded and sat down 
again. 


S8 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ What’s he got to do with the case? ” asked the man he had spoken 
with. 

“ Blest if I know,” said Jerry. 

“ What have you got to do with it, then, if a person may inquire? ” 

“ Blest if I know that either,” said Jerry. 

The entrance of the Judge, and a consequent great stir and settling 
down in the court, stopped the dialogue. Presently, the dock became 
the central point of interest. Two gaolers, who had been standing 
there, went out, and the prisoner was brought in, and put to the bar. 

Everybody present, except the one wigged gentleman who looked at 
the ceiling, stared at him. All the human breath in the place, rolled 
at him, like a sea, or a wind, or a fire. Eager faces strained round 
pillars and corners, to get a sight of him; spectators in back rows stood 
up, not to miss a hair of him; people on the floor of the court, laid 
their hands on the shoulders of the people before them, to help them- 
selves, at anybody’s cost, to a view of him — stood a-tiptoe, got upon 
ledges, stood upon next to nothing, to see every inch of him. Conspic- 
uous among these latter, like an animated bit of the spiked wall of 
Newgate, Jerry stood; aiming at the prisoner the beery breath of a 
whet he had taken as he came along, and discharging it to mingle with 
the waves of other beer, and gin, and tea, and coffee, and what not, that 
flowed at him, and already broke upon the great windows behind him in 
an impure mist and rain. 

The object of all this staring and blaring, was a young man of about 
five-and-twenty, well-grown and well-looking, with a sunburnt cheek and 
a dark eye. His condition was that of a young gentleman. He was 
plainly dressed in black, or very dark grey, and his hair, which was 
long and dark, was gathered in a ribbon at the back of his neck; more 
to be out of his way than for ornament. As an emotion of the mind 
will express itself through any covering of the body, so the paleness 
which his situation engendered came through the brown upon his cheek, 
showing the soul to be stronger than the sun. He was otherwise quite 
self-possessed, bowed to the Judge, and stood quiet. 

The sort of interest with which this man was stared and breathed at, 
was not a sort that elevated humanity. Had he stood in peril of a 
less horrible sentence — had there been a chance of any one of its 
savage details being spared — by just so much would he have lost in 
his fascination. The form that was to be doomed to be so shamefully 


A SIGHT 


59 


mangled was the sight; the immortal creature that was to be so butchered 
and torn asunder, yielded the sensation. Whatever gloss the various 
spectators put upon the interest, according to their several arts and 
powers of self-deceit, the interest was, at the root of it, Ogreish. 

Silence in the court! Charles Darnay had yesterday pleaded “Not 
Guilty ” to an indictment denouncing him (with infinite jingle and jangle) 
for that he was a false traitor to our serene, illustrious, excellent, and 
so forth, prince, our Lord the King, by reason of his having, on divers 
occasions, and by divers means and ways, assisted Lewis, the French 
King, in his wars against our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so 
forth; that was to say, by coming and going, between the dominions of 
our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth, and those of the 
said French Lewis, and wickedly, falsely, traitorously, and otherwise 
evil-adverbiously, revealing to the said French Lewis what forces our 
said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth, had in preparation to 
send to Canada and North America. This much, Jerry, with his head 
becoming more and more spiky as the law terms bristled it, made out 
with huge satisfaction, and so arrived circuitously at the understanding 
that the aforesaid, and over and over again aforesaid, Charles Darnay, 
stood there before him upon his trial; that the jury were swearing in; 
and that Mr. Attorney-General was making ready to speak. 

The accused, who was (and who knew he was) being mentally hanged, 
beheaded, and quartered, by everybody there, neither flinched from the 
situation, nor assumed any theatrical air in it. He was quiet and atten- 
tive; watched the opening proceedings with a grave interest; and stood 
with his hands resting on the slab of wood before him, so composedly, 
that they had not displaced a leaf of the herbs with which it was 
strewn. The court was all bestrewn with herbs and sprinkled with 
vinegar, as a precaution against gaol air and gaol fever. 

Over the prisoner’s head there was a mirror, to throw the light down 
upon him. Crowds of the wicked and the wretched had been reflected 
in it, and had passed from its surface and this earth’s together. 
Haunted in a most ghastly manner that abominable place would have 
been, if the glass could ever have rendered back its reflections, as the 
ocean is one day to give up its dead. Some passing thought of the 
infamy and disgrace for which it had been reserved, may have struck 
the prisoner’s mind. Be that as it may, a change in his position making 
him conscious of a bar of light across his face, he looked up; and when 


6o A TALE OF TWO CITIES 

he saw the glass his face flushed, and his right hand pushed the herbs 
away. 

It happened, that the action turned his face to that side of the 
court which was on his left^ About on a level with his eyes, there sat, 
in that corner of the Judge’s bench, two persons upon whom his look 
immediately rested; so immediately, and so much to the changing of 
his aspect, that all the eyes that were turned upon him, turned to them. 

The spectators saw in the two figures, a young lady of little more 
than twenty, and a gentleman who was evidently her father; a man of a 
very remarkable appearance in respect of the absolute whiteness of his 
hair, and a certain indescribable intensity of face : not of an active kind, 
but pondering and self-communing. When this expression was upon 
him, he looked as if he were old; but when it was stirred and broken 
up — as it was now, in a moment, on his speaking to his daughter — he 
became a handsome man, not past the prime of life. 

His daughter had one of her hands drawn through his arm, as she 
sat by him, and the other pressed upon it. She had drawn close to him, 
in her dread of the scene, and in her pity for the prisoner. Her fore- 
head had been strikingly expressive of an engrossing terror and com- 
passion that saw nothing but the peril of the accused. This had been 
so very noticeable, so very powerfully and naturally shown, that starers 
who had had no pity for him were touched by her; and the whisper 
went about, “ Who are they? ” 

Jerry, the messenger, who had made his own observations, in his 
own manner, and who had been sucking the rust off his fingers in his 
absorption, stretched his neck to hear who they were. The crowd 
about him had pressed and passed the inquiry on to the nearest attend- 
ant, and from him it had been more slowly pressed and passed back; at 
last it got to Jerry: 

“ Witnesses.” 

“For which side? ” 

“ Against.” 

“ Against what side? ” 

“ The prisoner’s.” 

The Judge, whose eyes had gone in the general direction, recalled 
them, leaned back in his seat, and looked steadily at the man whose life 
was in his hand, as Mr. Attorney-General rose to spin the rope, grind 
the ax, and hammer the nails into the scaffold. 


CHAPTER III 


A DlSAPPOINTMmT 

M r. ATTORNEY-GENERAL had to inform the jury, that the 
prisoner before them, though young in years, was old in the 
treasonable practices which claimed the forfeit of his life. That this 
correspondence with the public enemy was not a correspondence of 
to-day, or of yesterday, or even of last year, or of the year before. 
That, it was certain the prisoner had, for longer than that, been in the 
habit of passing and repassing between France and England, on secret 
business of which he could give no honest account. That, if it were in 
the nature of traitorous ways to thrive (which happily it never was), 
the real wickedness and guilt of his business might have remained undis- 
covered. That Providence, however, had put it into the heart of a 
person who was beyond fear and beyond reproach, to ferret out the 
nature of the prisoner’s schemes, and, struck with horror, to disclose 
them to his Majesty’s Chief Secretary of State and most honorable 
Privy Council. That, this patriot would be produced before them. 
That, his position and attitude were, on the whole, sublime. That, he 
had been the prisoner’s friend, but, at once in an auspicious and an evil 
hour detecting his infamy, had resolved to immolate the traitor he 
could no longer cherish in his bosom, on the sacred altar of his country. 
That, if statues were decreed in Britain, as in ancient Greece and Rome, 
to public benefactors, this shining citizen would assuredly have had one. 
That, as they were not so decreed, he probably would not have one. 
That, Virtue, as had been observed by the poets (in many passages 
which he well knew the jury would have, word for word, at the tips of 
their tongues; whereat the jury’s countenances displayed a guilty con- 
sciousness that they knew nothing about the passages) , was in a manner 
contagious; more especially the bright virtue known as patriotism, or 
love of country. That, the lofty example of this immaculate and unim- 
peachable witness for the Crown, to refer to whom however unworthily 
was an honor, had communicated itself to the prisoner’s servant, and 
had engendered in him a holy determination to examine his master’s 

6i 


62 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


tabledrawers and pockets, and secrete his papers. That, he (Mr. At- 
torney-General) was prepared to hear some disparagement attempted 
of this admirable servant; but that, in a general way, he preferred him 
to his (Mr. Attorney-General’s ) brothers and sisters, and honored him 
more than his (Mr. Attorney-General’s) father and mother. That, he 
called with confidence on the jury to come and do likewise. That, the 
evidence of these two witnesses, coupled with the documents of their 
discovering that would be produced, would show the prisoner to have 
been furnished with lists of his Majesty’s forces, and of their dispo- 
sition and preparation, both by sea and land, and would leave no doubt 
that he had habitually conveyed such information to a hostile power. 
That, these lists could not be proved to be in the prisoner’s handwrit- 
ing; but that it was all the same; that, indeed, it was rather the better 
for the prosecution, as showing the prisoner to be artful in his precau- 
tions. That, the proof would go back five years, and would show 
the prisoner already engaged in these pernicious missions, within a few 
weeks before the date of the very first action fought between the British 
troops and the Americans. That, for these reasons, the jury, being a 
loyal jury (as he knew they were), and being a responsible jury (as 
they knew they were), must positively find that prisoner guilty, and 
make an end of him, whether they liked it or not. That, they never 
could lay their heads upon their pillows; that, they never could tolerate 
the idea of their wives laying their heads upon their pillows; that, they 
never could endure the notion of their children laying their heads upon 
their pillows; in short, that there never more could be, for them or 
theirs, any laying of heads upon pillows at all, unless the prisoner’s 
head was taken off. That head Mr. Attorney^General concluded by 
demanding of them, in the name of everything he could think of with 
a round turn in it, and on the faith of his solemn asseveration that he 
already considered the prisoner as good as dead and gone. 

When the Attorney^General ceased, a buzz arose in the court as if 
a cloud of great blue-flies were swarming about the prisoner, in antici- 
pation of what he was soon to become. When toned down again, the 
unimpeachable patriot appeared in the witness-box. 

Mr. Solicitor-General then, following his leader’s lead, examined the 
patriot: John Barsad, gentleman, by name. The story of his pure soul 
was exactly what Mr. Attorney-General had described it to be — per- 
haps, if it had a fault, a little too exactly. Having released his noble 


A DISAPPOINTMENT 


63 

bosom of its burden, he would have modestly withdrawn himself, but 
that the wigged gentleman with the papers before him, sitting not far 
from Mr. Lorry, begged to ask him a few questions. The wigged gen- 
tleman sitting opposite, still looking at the ceiling of the court. 

Had he ever been a spy himself? No, he scorned the base insinua- 
tion. What did he live upon? His property. Where was his prop- 
erty? He didn’t precisely remember where it was. What was it? 
No business of anybody’s. Had he inherited it? Yes, he had. From 
whom? Distant relation. Very distant? Rather. Ever been in 
prison? Certainly not. Never in a debtors’ prison? Didn’t see what 
that had to do with it. Never in a debtor’s prison? — Come, once 
again, — Never? Yes. How many times? Two or three times. Not 
five or six? Perhaps. Of what profession? Gentleman. Ever been 
kicked? Might have been. Frequently? No. Ever kicked down- 
stairs? Decidedly not; once received a kick on the top of a staircase, 
and fell downstairs of his own accord. Kicked on that occasion for 
cheating at dice? Something to that effect was said by the intoxicated 
liar who committed the assault, but it was not true. Swear it was not 
true? Positively. Ever live by cheating at play? Never. Ever live 
by play? Not more than other gentlemen do. Ever borrow money 
of the prisoner? Yes. Ever pay him? No. Was not this intimacy 
with the prisoner, in reality a very slight one, forced upon the prisoner 
in coaches, inns, and packets? No. Sure he saw the prisoner with 
these lists? Certain. Knew no more about the lists? No. Had not 
procured them himself, for instance? No. Expect to get anything by 
this evidence? No. Not in regular government pay and employment, 
to lay traps? Oh dear no. Or to do anything? Oh dear no. Swear 
that? Over and over again. No motives but motives of sheer patriot- 
ism? None whatever. 

The virtuous servant, Roger Cly, swore his way through the case at a 
great rate. He had taken service with the prisoner, in good faith and 
simplicity, four years ago. He had asked the prisoner, aboard the 
Calais packet, if he wanted a handy fellow, and the prisoner had en- 
gaged him. He had not asked the prisoner to take the handy fellow as 
an act of charity — never thought of such a thing. He began to have 
suspicions of the prisoner, and to keep an eye upon him, soon after- 
wards. In arranging his clothes, while traveling, he had seen similar 
lists to these in the prisoner’s pockets, over and over again. He had 


64 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


taken these lists from the drawer of the prisoner’s desk. He had not 
put them there first. He had seen the prisoner show these identical 
lists to French gentlemen at Calais, and similar lists to French gentle- 
men, both at Calais and Boulogne. He loved his country, and couldn’t 
bear it, and had given information. He had never been suspected of 
stealing a silver tea-pot; he had been maligned respecting a mustard- 
pot, but it turned out to be only a plated one. He had known the last 
witness seven or eight years; that was merely a coincidence. He didn’t 
call it a particularly curious coincidence ; most coincidences were curious. 
Neither did he call it a curious coincidence that true patriotism was his 
only motive too. He was a true Briton, and hoped there were many 
like him. 

The blue-flies buzzed again, and Mr. Attorney-General called Mr. 
Jarvis Lorry. 

“ Mr. Jarvis Lorry, are you a clerk in Tellson’s Bank? ” 

1 am. 

“ On a certain Friday night in November one thousand seven hundred 
and seventy-five, did business occasion you to travel between London 
and Dover by the mail? ” 

“ It did.” 

“Were there any other passengers in the mail?” 

“Two.” 

“ Did they alight on the road in the course of the night? ” 

“ They did.” 

“ Mr. Lorry, look upon the prisoner. Was he one of those two 
passengers? ” 

“ I cannot undertake to say that he was.” 

“ Does he resemble either of these two passengers? ” 

“ Both were so wrapped up, and the night was so dark, and we 
were all so reserved, that I cannot undertake to say even that.” 

“ Mr. Lorry, look again upon the prisoner. Supposing him wrapped 
up as those two passengers were, is there anything in his bulk and 
stature to render it unlikely that he was one of them? ” 

“ No.” 

“ You will not swear, Mr. Lorry, that he was not one of them? ” 

“ No.” 

“ So at least you say he may have been one of them? ” 

“ Yes. Except that I remember them both to have been — like my- 


A DISAPPOINTMENT 


65 

self — timorous of highwaymen, and the prisoner has not a timorous 
air.” 

“ Did you ever see a counterfeit of timidity, Mr. Lorry? ” 

“ I certainly have seen that.” 

“ Mr. Lorry, look once more upon the prisoner. Have you seen 
him, to your certain knowledge, before? ” 

“ I have.” 

“When?” 

“ I was returning from France a few days afterwards, and, at Calais, 
the prisoner came on board the packet-ship in which I returned, and 
made the voyage with me.” 

“ At what hour did he come on board? ” 

“ At a little after midnight.” 

“ In the dead of the night. Was he the only passenger who came 
on board at that untimely hour?” 

“ He happened to be the only one.” 

“ Never mind about ‘ happening,’ Mr. Lorry. He was the only 
passenger who came on board in the dead of the night? ” 

“ He was.” 

“ Were you traveling alone, Mr. Lorry, or with any companion? ” 

“ With two companions. A gentleman and lady. They are here.” 

“They are here. Had you any conversation with the prisoner? ” 

“ Hardly any. The weather was stormy, and the passage long and 
rough, and I lay on a sofa, almost from shore to shore.” 

“ Miss Manette I ” 

The young lady, to whom all eyes had been turned before, and were 
now turned again, stood up where she had sat. Her father rose with 
her, and kept her hand drawn through his arm. 

“ Miss Manette, look upon the prisoner.” 

To be confronted with such pity, and such earnest youth and beauty, 
was far more trying to the accused than to be confronted with all 
the crowd. Standing, as it were, apart with her on the edge of his 
grave, not all the staring curiosity that looked on, could, for the moment, 
nerve him to remain quite still. His hurried right hand parcelled out 
the herbs before him into imaginary beds of flowers in a garden; and 
his efforts to control and steady his breathing shook the lips from which 
the color rushed to his heart. The buzz of the great flies was loud 
again. 


66 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“Miss Manette, have you seen the prisoner before?” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“Where?” 

“ On board of the packet-ship just now referred to, sir, and on the 
same occasion.” 

“ You are the young lady just now referred to? ” 

“ O ! most unhappily, I ami ” 

The plaintive tone of her companion merged into the less musical 
voice of the Judge, as he said something fiercely: “Answer the ques- 
tion put to you, and make no remark upon them.” 

“ Miss Manette, had you any conversation with the prisoner on that 
passage across the Channel?” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“ Recall it.” 

In the midst of a profound stillness, she faintly began: 

“ When the gentleman came on board — ” 

“ Do you mean the prisoner? ” inquired the Judge, knitting his brows. 

“ Yes, my Lord.” 

“ Then say the prisoner.” 

“ When the prisoner came on board, he noticed that my father,” 
turning her eyes lovingly to him as he stood beside her, “ was much 
fatigued and in a very weak state of health. My father was so re- 
duced that I was afraid to take him out of the air, and I had made a 
bed for him on the deck near the cabin steps, and I sat on the deck at 
his side to take care of him. There were no other passengers that 
night, but we four. The prisoner was so good as to beg permission 
to advise me how I could shelter my father from the wind and weather, 
better than I had done. I had not known how to do it well, not under- 
standing how the wind would set when we were out of the harbor. 
He did it for me. He expressed great gentleness and kindness for my 
father’s state, and I am sure he felt it. That was the manner of our 
beginning to speak together.” 

“ Let me interrupt you for a moment. Had he come on board 
alone?” 

“ No.” 

“ How many were with him? ” 

“ Two French gentlemen.” 

“ Had they conferred together? ” 


A DISAPPOINTMENT 67 

“ They had conferred together until the last moment, when it was 
necessary for the French gentlemen to be landed in their boat.” 

“ Had any papers been handed about among them, similar to these 
lists? ” 

“ Some papers had been handed about among them, but I don’t know 
what papers.” 

“ Like these in shape and size? ” 

“ Possibly, but indeed I don’t know, although they stood whispering 
very near to me: because they stood at the top of the cabin steps to 
have the light of the lamp that w’as hanging there ; it was a dull lamp, 
and they spoke very low, and I did not hear what they said, and saw 
only that they looked at papers.” 

“ Now, to the prisoner’s conversation. Miss Manette.” 

“The prisoner was as open in his confidence with me — which rose 
out of my helpless situation — as he was kind, and good, and useful 
to my father. I hope,” bursting into tears, “ I may not repay him by 
doing him harm to-day.” 

Buzzing from the blue-flies^^ 

“ Miss Manette, if the prisoner does not perfectly understand that 
you give the evidence which it is your duty to give — which you must 
if give — and which you cannot escape from giving — with great un- 
willingness, he is the only person present in that condition. Please 
to go on.” 

“ He told me that; he was traveling on business of a delicate and 
difficult nature, which might get people into trouble, and that he was 
therefore traveling under an assumed name. He said that this busi- 
ness had, within a few days, taken him to France, and might, at inter- 
vals, take him backwards and forwards between France and England 
for a long time to come.” 

“ Did he say anything about America, Miss Manette? Be partic- 
ular.” 

“ He tried to explain to me how that quarrel had arisen, and he said 
that, so far as he could judge, it was a wrong and foolish one on Eng- 
land’s part. He added, in a jesting way, that perhaps George Wash- 
ington might gain almost as great a name in history as George the 
Third. But there was no harm in his way of saying this: it was said 
laughingly, and to beguile the time.” 

Any strongly marked expression of face on the part of a chief actor 


68 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


in a scene of great interest to whom many eyes are directed, will be 
unconsciously imitated by the spectators. Her forehead was painfully 
anxious and intent as she gave this evidence, and, in the pauses when 
she stopped for the Judge to write it down, watched its effect upon 
the counsel for and against. Among the lookers-on there was the same 
expression in all quarters of the court; insomuch, that a great majority 
of the foreheads there, might have been mirrors reflecting the witness, 
when the Judge looked up from his notes to glare at that tremendous 
heresy about George Washington. 

Mr. Attorney-General now signified to my Lord, that he deemed it 
necessary, as a matter of precaution and form, to call the young lady’s 
father, Doctor Manette. Who was called accordingly. 

“ Doctor Manette, look upon the prisoner. Have you ever seen him 
before? ” 

“ Once. When he called at my lodgings in London. Some three 
years, or three years and a half ago.” 

“ Can you identify him as your fellow-passenger on board the packet, 
or speak to his conversation with your daughter? ” 

“ Sir, I can do neither.” 

“ Is there any particular and special reason for your being unable 
to do either? ” 

He answered, in a low voice, “ There is.” 

“ Has it been your misfortune to undergo a long imprisonment, with- 
out trial, or even accusation, in your native country. Doctor Manette? ” 

He answered, in a tone that went to every heart, “ A long imprison- 
ment.” 

“ Were you newly Released on the occasion in question? ” 

“ They tell me so.” 

“ Have you no remembrance of the occasion? ” 

“ None. My mind is a blank, from some time — I cannot even say 
what time — when I employed myself, in my captivity, in making shoes, 
to the time when I found myself living in London with my dear daugh- 
ter here. She had become familiar to me, when a gracious God re- 
stored my faculties; but, I am quite unable even to say how she had 
become familiar. I have no remembrance of the process.” 

Mr. Attorney-General sat down, and the father and daughter sat 
down together. 

A singular circumstance then arose in the case. The object in hand 


A DISAPPOINTMENT 


69 

being to show that the prisoner went down, with some fellow-plotter 
untracked, in the Dover mail on that Friday night in November five 
years ago, and got out of the mail in the night, as a blind, at a place 
where he did not remain, but from which he traveled back some dozen 
miles or more, to a garrison and dockyard, and there collected infor- 
mation; a witness was called to identify him as having been at the pre- 
cise time required, in the coffee-room of an hotel in that garrison-and- 
dockyard town, waiting for another person. The prisoner’s counsel 
was cross-examining this witness with no result, except that he had 
never seen the prisoner on any other occasion, when the wigged gentle- 
man who had all this time been looking at the ceiling of the court, 
wrote a word or two on a little piece of paper, screwed it up, and 
tossed it to him. Opening this piece of paper in the next pause, the 
counsel looked with great attention and curiosity at the prisoner. 

“ You say again you are quite sure that it was the prisoner? ” 

The witness was quite sure. 

“ Did you ever see anybody very like the prisoner? ” 

Not so like (the witness said) as that he could be mistaken. 

“ Look well upon that gentleman, my learned friend there,” point- 
ing to him who had tossed the paper over, “ and then look well upon 
the prisoner. How say you? Are they very like each other?” 

Allowing for my learned friend’s appearance being careless and 
slovenly if not debauched, they were sufficiently like each other to sur- 
prise, not only the witness, but everybody present, when they were thus 
brought into comparison. My Lord being prayed to bid my learned 
friend lay aside his wig, and giving no very gracious consent, the like- 
ness became much more remarkable. My Lord inquired of Mr. Stry- 
ver (the prisoner’s counsel), whether they were next to try Mr. Carton 
(name of my learned friend) for treason? But, Mr. Stryver replied 
to my Lord, no; but he would ask the witness to tell him whether 
what happened once, might happen twice; whether he would have been 
so confident, if he had seen this illustration of his rashness sooner, 
whether he would be so confident, having seen it; and more. The 
upshot of which, was, to smash this witness like a crockery vessel, and 
shiver his part of the case to useless lumber. 

Mr. Cruncher had by this time taken quite a lunch of rust off his 
fingers in his following of the evidence. He had now to attend while 
Mr. Stryver fitted the prisoner’s case on the jury, like a compact suit 


70 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


of clothes; showing them how the patriot, Barsad, was a hired spy 
and traitor, an unblushing trafficker in blood, and one of the greatest 
scoundrels upon earth since accursed Judas — which he certainly did 
look rather like. How the virtuous servant, Cly, was his friend and 
partner, and was worthy to be ; how the watchful eyes of those forgers 
and false swearers had rested on the prisoner as a victim, because some 
family affairs in France, he being of French extraction, did require his 
making those passages across the Channel — though what those affairs 
were a consideration for others who were near and dear to him, for- 
bad him, even for his life, to disclose. How the evidence that had 
been warped and wrested from the young lady, whose anguish in giv- 
ing it they had witnessed, came to nothing, involving the mere little 
innocent gallantries and politeness likely to pass between any young 
gentleman and young lady so thrown together; — with the exception of 
that reference to George Washington, which was altogether too ex- 
travagant and impossible to be regarded in any other light than as a 
monstrous joke. How it would be a weakness in the government to 
break down in this attempt to practice for popularity on the lowest 
national antipathies and fears, and therefore Mr. Attorney-General 
had made the most of it; how, nevertheless, it rested upon nothing, 
save that vile and infamous character of evidence too often disfiguring 
such cases, and of which the State Trials of this country were full. 
But, there my Lord interposed (with as grave a face as if it had not 
been true) , saying that he could not sit upon that Bench and suffer those 
allusions. 

Mr. Stryver then called his few witnesses, and Mr. Cruncher had 
next to attend while Mr. Attorney-General turned the whole suit of 
clothes Mr. Stryver had fitted on the jury, inside out; showing how 
Barsad and Cly were even a hundred times better than he had thought 
them, and the prisoner a hundred times worse. Lastly, came my Lord 
himself, turning the suit of clothes, now inside out, now outside in, 
but on the whole decidedly trimming and shaping them into graveclothes 
for the prisoner. 

And now, the jury turned to consider, and the great flies swarmed 
again. 

Mr. Carton, who had so long sat looking at the ceiling of the court, 
changed neither his place nor his attitude, even in this excitement. 
While his learned friend, Mr, Stryver, massing his papers before him, 


A DISAPPOINTMENT 


71 


whispered with those who sat near, and .from time to time glanced 
anxiously at the jury; while all the spectators moved more or less, and 
grouped themselves anew; while even my Lord himself arose from his 
seat, and slowly paced up and down his platform, not unattended by a 
suspicion in the minds of the audience that his state was feverish; 
this one man sat leaning back, with his torn gown half off him, his untidy 
wig put on just as it had happened to light on his head after its 
removal, his hands in his pockets, and his eyes on the ceiling as they 
had been all day. Something especially reckless in his demeanor, not 
only gave him a disreputable look, but so diminished the strong re- 
semblance he undoubtedly bore to the prisoner (which his momentary 
earnestness, when they were compared together, had strengthened), that 
many of the lookers-on, taking note of him now, said to one another they 
would hardly have thought, the two were so alike. Mr. Cruncher made 
the observation to his next neighbor, and added, “ I’d hold half a guinea 
that he don’t get no law-work to do. Don’t look like the sort of one 
to get any, do he? ” 

Yet, this Mr. Carton took in more of the details of the scene that he 
appeared to take in; for now, when Miss Manette’s head dropped upon 
her father’s breast, he was the first to see it, and to say audibly: 
“ Officer ! look to that young lady. Help the gentleman to take her 
out. Don’t you see she will fall I ” 

There was much commiseration for her as she was removed, and 
much sympathy with her father. It had evidently been a great distress 
to him, to have the days of his imprisonment recalled. He had shown 
strong internal agitation when he was questioned, and that pondering 
or brooding look which made him old, had been upon him, like a 
heavy cloud, ever since. As he passed out, the jury, who had turned 
back and paused a moment, spoke, through their foreman. 

They were not agreed, and wished to retire. My Lord (perhaps 
with George Washington on his mind) showed some surprise that they 
were not agreed, T)ut signified his pleasure that they should retire under 
watch and ward, and retired himself. The trial had lasted all day, 
and the lamps in the court were now being lighted. It began to be 
rumored that the jury would be out a long while. The spectators 
dropped off to get refreshment, and the prisoner withdrew to the back 
of the dock, and sat down. 

Mr. Lorry, who had gone out when the young lady and her father 


72 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


went out, now reappeared, and beckoned to Jerry: who, in the slackened 
interest, could easily get near him. 

“ Jerry, if you wish to take something to eat, you can. But, keep 
in the way. You will be sure to hear when the jury come in. Don’t 
be a moment behind them, for I want you to take the verdict back to 
the bank. You are the quickest messenger I know, and will get to 
Temple Bar long before I can.” 

Jerry had just enough forehead to knuckle, and he knuckled it in 
acknowledgment of this communication and a shilling. Mr. Carton 
came up at the moment, and touched Mr. Lorry on the arm. 

“ How is the young lady? ” 

“ She is greatly distressed; but her father is comforting her, and she 
feels the better for being out of court.” 

“ I’ll tell the prisoner so. It won’t do for a respectable bank gen- 
tleman like you, to be seen speaking to him publicly, you know.” 

Mr. Lorry reddened as if he were conscious of having debated the 
point in his mind, and Mr. Carton made his way to the outside of the 
bar. The way out of court lay in that direction, and Jerry followed 
him, all eyes, ears, and spikes. 

“ Mr. Darnay!” 

The prisoner came forward directly. 

“ You will naturally be anxious to hear of the witness. Miss Manette. 
She will do very well. Ybu have seen the worst of her agitation.” 

“ I am deeply sorry to have been the cause of it. Could you tell her 
so for me, with my fervent acknowledgments ? ” 

“ Yes, I could. I will, if you ask it.” 

Mr. Carton’s manner was so careless as to be almost insolent. He 
stood, half turned from the prisoner, lounging with his elbow against 
the bar. 

“ I do ask it. Accept my cordial thanks.” 

“ What,” said Carton, still only half turned towards him, “ do you 
expect, Mr. Darnay?” 

“ The worst.” 

“ It’s the wisest thing to expect, and the likeliest. But I think their 
withdrawing is in your favor.” 

Loitering on the way out of court not being allowed, Jerry heard no 
more; but left them — *so like each other in features, so unlike each 


A DISAPPOINTMENT 73 

other in manner — standing side by side, both reflected in the glass 
above them. 

An hour and a half limped heavily away in the thief-and-rascal 
crowded passages below, even though assisted off with mutton pies and 
ale. The hoarse messenger, uncomfortably seated on a form after tak- 
ing that refection, had drooped into a doze, when a loud murmur and 
a rapid tide of people setting up the stairs that led to the court, carried 
him along with them. 

“Jerry I Jerry! ” Mr. Lorry was already calling at the door when 
he got there. 

“ Here, sir ! It’s a fight to get back again. Here I am, sir 1 ” 

Mr. Lorry handed him a paper through the throng. “ Quick 1 Have 
you got it? ” 

“Yes, sir?” 

Hastily written on the paper was the word “ Acquitted.” 

“ If you had sent the message, ‘ Recalled to Life,’ again,” muttered 
Jerry, as he turned, “ I should have known what you meant, this time.” 

He had no opportunity of saying, or so much as thinking, anything 
else, until he was clear of the Old Bailey; for, the crowd came pouring 
out with a vehemence that nearly took him off his legs, and a loud buzz 
swept into the street ’as if the baffled blue- flies wer e dispersing in search 
of other carrion. ' " ' 


CHAPTER IV 


CONGRA TULA TORY 

F rom the dimly-lighted passages of the court, the last sediment of 
the human stew that had been boiling there all day, was straining 
off, when Doctor Manette, Lucie Manette, his daughter, Mr. Lorry, 
the solicitor for the defence, and its counsel, Mr. Stryver, stood gath- 
ered round Mr. Charles Darnay — just released — congratulating him 
on his escape from death. 

It would have been difficult by a far brighter light, to recognize in 
Doctor Manette, intellectual of face and upright of bearing, the shoe- 
maker of the garret in Paris. Yet, no one could have looked at him 
twice, without looking again; even though the opportunity of observa- 
tion had not extended to the mournful cadence of his low grave voice, 
and to the abstraction that overclouded him fitfully, without any appar- 
ent reason. While one external cause, and that a reference to his long 
lingering agony, would always — as on the trial — evoke this condi- 
tion from the depths of his soul, it was also in its nature to arise of 
itself, and to draw a gloom over him, as incomprehensible to those un- 
acquainted with his story as if they had seen the shadow of the actual 
Bastille thrown upon him by a summer sun, when the substance was 
three hundred miles away. 

Only his daughter had the power of charming this black brooding 
from his mind. She was the golden thread that united him to a Past 
beyond his misery, and to a Present beyond his misery; and the sound 
of her voice, the light of her face, the touch of her hand, had a strong 
beneficial influence with him almost always. Not absolutely always, 
for she could recall some occasions on which her power had failed; 
but they were few and slight, and she believed them over. 

Mr. Darnay had kissed her hand fervently and gratefully, and had 
turned to Mr. Stryver, whom he warmly thanked. Mr. Stryver, a 
man of little more than thirty, but looking twenty years older than he 
was, stout, loud, red, bluff, and free from any drawback of delicacy, 
had a pushing way of shouldering himself (morally and physically) 

74 


CONGRA TULA TOR Y 


IS 

into companies and conversations, that argued well for his shouldering 
his way up in life. 

He still had his wig and gown on, and he said, squaring himself 
at his late client to that degree that he squeezed the innocent Mr. Lorry 
clean out of the group : “ I am glad to have brought you off with honor, 
Mr. Darnay. It was an infamous prosecution, grossly infamous; but 
not the less likely to succeed on that account.” 

‘‘ You have laid me under an obligation to you for life — in two 
senses,” said his late client, taking his hand. 

“ I have done my best for you, Mr. Darnay; and my best is as good 
as another man’s, I believe.” 

It clearly being incumbent on some one to say, “ Much better,” Mr. 
Lorry said it; perhaps not quite disinterestedly, but with the interested 
object of squeezing himself back again. 

“ You think so? ” said Mr. Stryver. “ Well! you have been present 
all day, and you ought to know. You are a man of business, too.” 

“ And as such,” quoth Mr. Lorry, whom the counsel learned in the 
law had now shouldered back into the group, just as he had previously 
shouldered him out of it — “ as such I will appeal to Doctor Manette, 
to break up this conference and order us all to our homes. Miss Lucie 
looks ill, Mr. Darnay has had a terrible day, we are worn out.” 

“Speak for yourself, Mr. Lorry,” said Stryver; “ I have a night’s 
work to do yet. Speak for yourself.” 

“ I speak for myself," answered Mr. Lorry, “ and for Darnay, and 
for Miss Lucie, and — * Miss Lucie, do you not think I may speak 
for us all?” He asked her the question pointedly, and with a glance 
at her father. 

His face had become frozen, as it were, in a very curious look at 
Darnay; an intent look, deepening into a frown of dislike and distrust, 
not even unmixed with fear. With this strange expression on him his 
thoughts had wandered away. 

“ My father>” said Lucie, softly laying her hand on his. 

He slowly shook the shadow off, and turned to her. 

“ Shall we go home, my father? ” 

With a long breath, he answered, “ Yes.” 

The friends of the acquitted prisoner had dispersed, under the im- 
pression — which he himself had originated — that he would not be 
released that night. The lights were nearly all extinguished in the 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


76 

passages, the iron gates were being closed with a jar and a rattle, and 
the dismal place was deserted until to-morrow morning’s interest of 
gallows, pillory, whipping-post, and branding-iron, should re-people it. 
Walking between her father and Mr. Darnay, Lucie Manette passed 
into the open air. A hackney-coach was called, and the father and 
daughter departed in it. 

Mr. Stryver had left them in the passage, to shoulder his way back 
to the robing-room. Another person, who had not joined the group, 
or interchanged a word with any one of them, but who had been lean- 
ing against the wall where its shadow was darkest, had silently strolled 
out after the rest, and had looked on until the coach drove away. He 
now stepped up to where Mr. Lorry and Mr. Darnay stood upon the 
pavement. 

“ So, Mr. Lorry ! Men of business may speak to Mr. Darnay now ? ” 

Nobody had made any acknowledgment of Mr. Carton’s part in the 
day’s proceedings; nobody had known of it. He was unrobed, and 
was none the better for it in appearance. 

“ If you knew what a conflict goes on in the business mind, when the 
business mind is divided between good-natured impulse and business 
appearances, you would be amused, Mr. Darnay.” 

Mr. Lorry reddened, and said, warmly, “ You have mentioned that 
before, sir. We men of business, who serve a House, are not our own 
masters. We have to think of the House more than ourselves.” 

“ I know, / know,” rejoined Mr. Carton, carelessly. “ Don’t be 
nettled, Mr. Lorry. You are as good as another, I have no doubt; 
better, I dare say.” 

“ And indeed, sir,” pursued Mr. Lorry, not minding him, “ I really 
don’t know what you have to do with the matter. If you’ll excuse me, 
as very much your elder, for saying so, I really don’t know that it is your 
business.” 

“ Business I Bless you, I have no business,” said Mr. Carton. 

“ It is a pity you have not, sir.” 

“ I think so, too.” 

“ If you had,” pursued Mr. Lorry, “ perhaps you would attend to it.” 

“ Lord love you, no ! — I shouldn’t,” said Mr. Carton. 

“ Well, sir! ” cried Mr. Lorry, thoroughly heated by his indifference, 
“ business is a very good thing, and a very respectable thing. And, sir, 


CONGRATULATORY 


77 


If business imposes Its restraints and Its silences and Impediments, Mr. 
Darnay as a young gentleman of generosity knows how to make allow- 
ance for that circumstance. Mr. Darnay, good-night, God bless you, 
sir! I hope you have been this day preserved for a prosperous and 
happy life. — Chair there! ” 

Perhaps a little angry with himself, as well as with the barrister, Mr. 
Lorry bustled into the chair, and was carried off to Tellson’s. Carton, 
who smelt of port wine, and did not appear to be quite sober, laughed 
then, and turned to Darnay: 

“ This is a strange chance that throws you and me together. This 
must be a strange night to you, standing alone here with your counter- 
part on these street stones?” 

“ I hardly seem yet,” returned Charles Darnay, “ to belong to this 
world again.” 

“I don’t wonder at it; it’s not so long since you were pretty far 
advanced on your way to another. You speak faintly.” 

“ I begin to think I am faint.” 

“Then why the devil don’t you dine? I dined, myself, while those 
numskulls were deliberating which world you should belong to — this, 
or some other. Let me show you the nearest tavern to dine well at.” 

Drawing his arm through his own, he took him down Ludgate Hill 
to Fleet Street, and so, up a covered way, into a tavern. Here they 
were shown into a little room, where Charles Darnay was soon recruit- 
ing his strength with a good plain dinner and good wine : while Carton 
sat opposite to him at the same table, with his separate bottle of port 
before him, and his fully half-insolent manner upon him. 

“ Do you feel, yet, that you belong to this terrestrial scheme again, 
Mr. Darnay?” 

“ I am frightfully confused regarding time and place; but I am so 
far mended as to feel that.” 

“ It must be an immense satisfaction! ” 

He said it bitterly, and filled up his glass again; which was a large 
one. 

“ As to me, the greatest desire I have, is to forget that I belong to 
it. It has no good in it for me — except wine like this — nor I for it. 
So we are not much alike in that particular. Indeed, I begin to think 
we are not much alike in any particular, you and 1.” 


7 ^ 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Confused by the emotion of the day, and feeling his being there with 
this Double of coarse deportment, to be like a dream, Charles Darnay 
was at a loss how to answer; finally, answered not at all. 

‘‘ Now your dinner is done,” Carton presently said, “ why don’t you 
call a health, Mr. Darnay; why don’t you give your toast? ” 

“What health? What toast?” 

“ Why, it’s on the tip of your tongue. It ought to be, it must be. 
I’ll swear it’s there.” 

“ Miss Manette, then! ” 

“ Miss Manette, then! ” 

Looking his companion full in the face while he dranjc the toast, 
Carton flung his glass over his shoulder against the wall, where it shiv- 
ered to pieces, then, rang the bell, and ordered in another. 

“ That’s a fair young lady to hand to a coach in the dark, Mr. Dar- 
nay ! ” he said, filling his new goblet. 

A slight frown and a laconic “ Yes ” were the answer. 

“That’s a fair young lady to be pitied by and wept for by! How 
does it feel? Is it worth being tried for one’s life to be the object 
of such sympathy and compassion, Mr. Darnay? ” 

Again Darnay answered not a word. 

“ She was mighty pleased to have your message, when I gave it her. 
Not that she showed she was pleased, but I suppose she was.” 

The allusion served as a timely reminder to Darnay that thi^ dis- 
agreeable companion had, of his own free will, assisted him ia the 
strait of the day. He turned the dialogue to that point, and thanked 
him for it. 

“ I neither want any thanks, nor merit any,” was the careless re- 
joinder. “ It was nothing to do, in the first place; and I don’t know 
why I did it, in the second. Mf. Darnay, let me ask you a question.” 

“ Willingly, and a small return for your good offices.” 

“ Do you think I particularly like you?” 

“ Really, Mr. Carton,” returned the other, oddly disconcerted, “ I 
have not asked myself the question.” 

“ But ask yourself the question now.” 

“ You have acted as if you do; but I don’t think you do.” 

“ I don’t think I do,” said Carton. “ I begin to have* a very good 
opinion of your understanding.” 


CONGRATULATORY 


79 


“ Nevertheless,” pursued Darnay, rising to ring the bell, “ there is 
nothing in that, I hope, to prevent my calling the reckoning, and our 
parting without ill-blood on either side.” 

Carton rejoining, “Nothing in life!” Darnay rang. “Do you 
call the whole reckoning? ” said Carton. On his answering in the affirm- 
ative, “ Then bring me another pint of this same wine, drawer, and 
come and wake me at ten.” 

The bill being paid, Charles Darnay rose and wished him good-night. 
Without returning the wish. Carton rose too, with something of a threat 
of defiance in his manner, and said, “A last word, Mr. Darnay: you 
think I am drunk? ” 

“ I think you have been drinking, Mr. Carton.” 

“Think? You know I have been drinking.” 

“ Since I must say so, I know it.” 

“ Then you shall likewise know why. I am a disappointed drudge, 
sir. I care for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me.” 

“ Much to be regretted. You might have used your talents better.” 

“ May be so, Mr. Darnay; may be not. Don’t let your sober face 
elate you, however; you don’t know what it may come to. Good- 
night ! ” 

When he was left alone, this strange being took up a candle, went 
to a glass that hung against the wall, and surveyed himself minutely in 
it. 

“ Do you particularly like the man? ” he muttered, at his own image; 
“why should you particularly like a man who resembles you? There 
is nothing in you to like; you know that. Ah, confound you I What 
a change you have made in yourself! A good reason for taking to a 
man, that he shows you what you have fallen away from, and what you 
might have been! Change places with him, and would you have been 
looked at by those blue eyes as he was, and commiserated by that agi- 
tated face as he was? Come on, and have it out in plain words? You 
hate the fellow.” 

He resorted to his pint of wine for consolation, drank it all in a few 
minutes, and fell asleep on his arms, with his hair straggling over the 
table, and a long winding-sheet in the candle dripping down upon him. 


CHAPTER V 


THE JACKAL 

T hose were drinking days, and most men drank hard. So very 
great is the improvement Time has brought about in such habits, 
that a moderate statement of the quantity of wine and punch which 
one man would swallow in the course of a night, without any detriment 
to his reputation as a perfect gentleman, would seem, in these days, a 
ridiculous exaggeration. The learned profession of the law was cer- 
tainly not behind any other learned profession in its Bacchanalian pro- 
pensities; neither was Mr. Stryver, already fast shouldering his way 
to a large and lucrative practice, behind his compeers in this particular, 
any more than in the drier parts of the legal race. 

A favorite at the Old Bailey, and eke at the Sessions, Mr. Stryver 
had begun cautiously to hew away the lower staves of the ladder on 
which he mounted. Sessions and Old Bailey had now to summon their 
favorite, specially, to their longing arms; and shouldering itself towards 
the visage of the Lord Chief Justice in the Court of King’s Bench, the 
florid countenance of Mr. Stryver might be daily seen, bursting out 
of the bed of wigs, like a great sunflower pushing its way at the sun 
from among a rank gardenful of flaring companions. 

It had once been noted at the Bar, that while Mr. Stryver was a glib 
man, and an unscrupulous, and a ready, and a bold, he had not that 
faculty of extracting the essence from a heap of statements, which is 
among the most striking and necessary of the advocate’s accomplish- 
ments. But, a remarkable improvement came upon him as to this. 
The more business he got, the greater his power seemed to grow of 
getting at its pith and marrow; and however late at night he sat carous- 
ing with Sydney Carton, he always had his points at his fingers’ ends in 
the morning. 

Sydney Carton, idlest and most unpromising of men, was Stryver’s 
great ally. What the two drank together, between Hilary Term and 
Michaelmas, might have floated a king’s ship. Stryver never had a 
case in hand, anywhere, but Carton was there, with his hands in his 
pockets, staring at the ceiling of the court; they went the same Circuit, 

8o 



THE JACKAL 


8 1 

and even there they prolonged their usual ofgies late into tho night, and 
Carton was rumored to be seen at broad day, going home stealthily and 
unsteadily to his lodgings, like a dissipated cat. At last, it began to 
get about, among such as were interested in the matter, that although 
Sydney Carton would never be a lion, he was an amazingly good jackal, 
and that he rendered suit and service to Stryver in that humble capacity. 

‘‘Ten o’clock, sir,” said the man at the tavern, whom he had charged 
to wake him • — “ ten o’clock, sir*.” 

“ Whafs the matter? ” 

“ Ten o’clock, sif.” 

“ .What do you mean? Ten o^clock at night? ” 

“ Yes, sir. Your honor told me to call you.” 

“Oh! I remember. Very well, very well.” 

After a few dull efforts to get to sleep again, which the man dexter- 
ously combated by stirring the fire continuously for five minutes, he 
got up, tossed his hat on, and walked out. He turned into the Temple, 
and, having revived himself by twice pacing the pavements of King’s 
Bench Walk and Paper Buildings, turned into the Stryver chambers. 

The Stryver clerk, who never assisted at these conferences, had gone 
home, and the Stryver principal opened the door. He had his slippeCa 
on, and a loose bedgown, and his throat was bare for his greater ease. 
He had that rather wild, strained, seared marking about the eyes, which 
may be observed in all free livers of his class, from the portrait of 
Jeffries downward, and which can be traced, under various disguises of 
Art, through the portraits of every Drinking Age. 

“ You are a little late. Memory,” said Stryver. 

“ About the usual time; it may be a quarter of an hour late.” 

They went into a dingy room lined with books and littefed with 
pajpers, where there was a blazing fire^ A kettle steamed upon the 
hob, and in the midst of the wreck of papers a table shone, with plenty 
of wine upon it, and brandy, and rum, and sugar, and lemons. 

“ You have had your bottle, I perceive, Sydney.” 

“Two to-night, I think. I have been dining with the day^s client; 
or seeing him dine — it’s all one 1 ” 

“ That was a rare point, Sydney, that you bro-ught to bear upon the 
identification. How did you come by it? When did it strike you? ” 

“ I thought he was rather a handsome fellow, and I thought I should 
have been much the same sort of fellow if I had had any luck.” 


82 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Mr. Stryver laughed till he shook his precious paunch. 

“ You and your luck, Sydney! Get to work, get to work.” 

Suddenly enough, the jackal loosened his dress, went into an adjoin- 
ing room, and came back with a large jug of cold water, a basin, and a 
towel or two. Steeping the towels in the water, and partially wringing 
them out, he folded them on his head in a manner hideous to behold, 
sat down at the table, and said, “ Now I am ready! ” 

“ Not much boiling down to be done to-night. Memory,” said Mr. 
Stryver, gaily, as he looked among his papers. 

“How much?” 

“ Only two sets of them.” 

“ Give me the worst first.” 

“There they are, Sydney. Fire away!” 

The lion then composed himself on his back on a sofa on one side 
of the drinking-table, while the jackal sat at his own paper-bestrewn 
table proper, on the other side of it with the bottles and glasses ready 
to his hand. Both resorted to the drinking-table without stint, but each 
in a different way; the lion for the most part reclining with his hands in 
his waistband, looking at the fire, or occasionally flirting with some 
lighter document; the jackal, with knitted brows and intent face, so 
deep in his task, that his eyes did not even follow the hand he stretched 
out for his glass — which often groped about, for a minute or more, 
before it found the glass for his lips. Two or three times, the matter 
in hand became so knotty, that the jackal found it imperative on him 
to get up, and steep his towels anew. From these pilgrimages to the 
jug and basin, he returned with such eccentricities of damp head-gear 
as no words can describe; which were made the more ludicrous by his 
a*nxious gravity. 

At length the jackal had got together a compact repast for the 
lion, and proceeded to offer it to him. The lion took it with care and 
caution, made, his selections from it, and his remarks upon it, and the 
jackal assisted both. When the repast was fully discussed, the lion 
put his hands in his waistband again, and lay down to meditate. The 
jackal then invigorated himself with a bumper for his throttle, and a 
fresh application to his head, and applied himself to the collection 
of a second meal; this was administered to the lion in the same 
manner, and was not disposed of until the clocks struck three in the 
morning. 


THE JACKAL 


83 

“ And now we have done, Sydney, fill a bumper of punch,” said Mr. 
Stryver. 

The jackal removed the towels from his head, which had been steam- 
ing again, shook himself, yawned, shivered, and complied. 

“You were very sound, Sydney, in the matter of those crown wit- 
nesses to-day. Every question told.” 

“ I always am sound; am I not? ” 

“ I don’t gainsay it. What has roughened your temper? Put some 
punch to it and smooth it again.” 

With a deprecatory grunt, the jackal again complied. 

“ The old Sydney Carton of old Shrewsbury School,” said Stryver, 
nodding his head over him as- he reviewed him in the present and the 
past*, “ the old seesaw Sydney. Up one minute and down the next; now 
in spirits and now in despondency! ” 

“ Ah! ” returned the other, sighing: “yes! The same Sydney, with 
the same luck. Even then, I did exercises for' other boys, and seldom 
did my own.” 

“ And why not? ” 

“ God knows. It was- my way, I suppose.” 

He sat, with his hands in his pockets and his legs stretched out 
before him, looking at the fire. 

“ Carton,” said his friend, squaring himself at him with a bullying 
air, as if the fire-grate had been the furnace m which sustained endeavor 
was forged, and the one delicate thing to be done for the old Sydney 
Carton of old Shrewsbury School was to shoulder him into it, “ your 
way is, and always was, a lame way. You summon no energy and pur- 
pose. Look at me.” 

“ Oh, botheration ! ” returned Sydney, with a lighter and more good- 
humored laugh, “ don’t you be moral! ” 

“ How have I done what I have done? ” said Stryver; “ how do I do 
what r do? ” 

“ Partly through paying me to help you, I suppose. But it’s- not 
worth your while to apostrophize me, or the air, about it; what you 
want to do, you do. You were always in the front rank, and I was 
always behind.” 

“ I had to get into the front rank; I was not born there, was I? ” 

“ I was not present at the ceremony; but my opinion is you were,” 
said Carton. Af this, he laughed again, and they both laughed. 


84 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ Before Shrewsbury, and at Shrewsbury, and ever since Shrewsbury,’-^ 
pursued Carton, “ you have fallen into your rank, and I have fallen 
into mine. Even when we were fellow-students in the Student-Quarter 
of Paris, picking up French, and French law, and other French crumbs 
that we didn’t get much good of, you were always somewhere, and I 
was always — nowhere.” 

“And whose fault was that?” 

“ Upon my soul, I am not sure that it was not yours. You were 
always driving and riving and shouldering and pressing, to that restless 
degree that I had no chance for my life but in rust and repose. It’s a 
gloomy thing, however, to talk about one’s own past, with the day 
breaking. Turn me in some other direction before I go.” 

“ Well, then! Pledge me to the pretty witness,” said Stryver, hold- 
ing up his glass. “ Are you turned in a pleasant direction? ” 

Apparently not, for he became gloomy again. 

“ Pretty witness,” he muttered, looking down into his glass. “ I have 
had enough of witnesses to-day and to-night; who’s your pretty wit- 
ness? ” 

“ The picturesque doctor’s daughter. Miss Manette.” 

“ pretty? ” 

“ Is she not? ” 

“ No.” 

“ Why, man alive, she was the admiration of the whole Court 1 ” 

“ Rot the admiration of the whole Court 1 Who made the Old 
Bailey a judge of beauty? She was a golden-haired doll! ” 

“ Do you know, Sydney,” said Mr. Stryver, looking at him with sharp 
eyes, and slowly drawing a hand across his florid face : “ do you know, 

I rather thought, at the time, that you sympathized with the golden- 
haired doll, and were quick to see what happened to the golden-haired 
doll?” 

“Quick to see what happened! If a girl, doll or no doll, swoons 
within a yard or two of a man’s nose, he can see it without a perspective- 
glass. I pledge you, but I deny the beauty. And now I’ll have no more 
drink; I’ll get to bed.” 

When his host followed him out on the staircase with a candle, to 
light him down the stairs, the day was coldly looking in through its 
grimy windows. When he got out of the house, the air was cold and 
sad, the dull sky overcast, the river dark and dim, the whole scene 


THE JACKAL 


85 

like a lifeless desert. And wreaths of dust were spinning round and 
round before the morning blast, as if the desert-sand had risen far 
away, and the first spray of it in its advance had begun to overwhelm the 
city. 

Waste forces within him, and a desert all around, this man stood 
still on his way across a silent terrace, and saw for a moment, lying 
in the wilderness before him, a mirage of honorable ambition, self- 
denial, and perseverance. In the fair city of this vision, there were 
airy galleries from which the loves and graces looked upon him, gardens 
in which the fruits of life hung ripening, waters of Hope that sparkled 
in his sight. A moment, and it was gone. Climbing to a high chamber 
in a well of houses, he threw himself down in his clothes on a neglected 
bed, and its pillow was wet with wasted tears. 

Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the 
man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed 
exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of 
the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away. 


CHAPTER VI 


HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE 

T he quiet lodgings of Doctor Manette were in a quiet street-corner 
not far from Soho Square. On the afternoon of a certain fine 
Sunday when the waves of four months had rolled over the trial for 
treason, and carried it, as to the public interest and memory, far out to 
sea, Mr. Jarvis Lorry walked along the sunny streets from Clerkenwell 
where he lived, on his way to dine with the Doctor. After several re- 
lapses into business-absorption, Mr. Lorry had become the Doctor’s 
friend, and the quiet street-corner was the sunny part of his life. 

On this certain fine Sunday, Mr. Lorry walked towards Soho, early 
in the afternoon, for three reasons of habit. Firstly, because, on fine 
Sundays, he often walked out, before dinner, with the Doctor and 
Lucie; secondly, because, on unfavorable Sundays, he was accustomed 
to be with them as the family friend, talking, reading, looking out of 
window, and generally getting through the day; thirdly, because he 
happened to have his own little shrewd doubts to solve, and knew how 
the ways of the Doctor’s household pointed to that time as a likely 
time for solving them. 

A quainter corner than the corner where the Doctor lived, was not 
to be found in London. There was no way through it, and the front 
windows of the Doctor’s lodgings commanded a pleasant little vista 
of street that had a congenial air of retirement on it. There were few 
buildings then, north of the Oxford Road, and forest-trees flourished, 
and wild flowers grew, and the hawthorn blossomed, in the now van- 
ished fields. As a consequence, country airs circulated in Soho with 
vigorous freedom, instead of languishing into the parish like stray 
paupers without a settlement; and there was many a good south wall, 
not far off, on which the peaches ripened in their season. 

The summer light struck into the corner brilliantly in the earlier part 
of the day; but, when the streets grew hot, the corner was in shadow, 
though not in shadow so remote but that you could see beyond it into 

86 


HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE 87 

a glare of brightness. It was a cool spot, staid but cheerful, a won- 
derful place for echoes, and a very harbor from the raging streets. 

There ought to have been a tranquil bark in such an anchorage, and 
there was. The Doctor occupied two floors of a large still house, 
where several callings purported to be pursued by day, but whereof 
little was audible any day, and which was shunned by all of them at 
night. In a building at the back, attainable by a court-yard where a 
plane-tree rustled its green leaves, church-organs claimed to be made, 
and silver to be chased, and likewise gold to be beaten by some myste- 
rious giant who had a golden arm starting out of the wall of the front 
hall — as if he had beaten himself precious, and menaced a similar 
conversion of all visitors. Very little of these trades, or of a lonely 
lodger rumored to live upstairs, or of a dim coach-trimming maker 
asserted to have a counting-house below, was ever heard or seen. Occa- 
sionally, a stray workman putting his coat on, traversed the hall, or a 
stranger peered about there, or a distant clink was heard across the 
court-yard, or a thump from the golden giant. These, however, were 
only the exceptions required to prove the rule that the sparrows in the 
plane-tree behind the house, and the echoes in the corner before it, 
had their own way from Sunday morning unto Saturday night. 

Doctor Manette received such patients here as his old reputation, 
and its revival in the floating whispers of his story, brought him. His 
scientific knowledge, and his vigilance and skill in conducting ingenious 
experiments, brought him otherwise into moderate request, and he 
earned as much as he wanted. 

These things were within Mr. Jarvis Lorry’s knowledge, thoughts, 
and notice, when he rang the door-bell of the tranquil house in the 
corner, on the fine Sunday afternoon. 

“ Doctor Manette at home? ” 

Expected home. 

“ Miss Lucie at home? ” 

Expected home. 

“ Miss Pross at home? ” 

Possibly at home, but of a certainty impossible for hand-maid to 
anticipate intentions of Miss Pross, as to admission or denial of the 
fact. 

“ As I am at home myself,” said Mr. Lorry, “ I’ll go upstairs.” 

Although the Doctor’s daughter had known nothing of the country 


88 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


of her birth, she appeared to have innately derived from it that ability 
to make much of little means, which is one of its most useful and most 
agreeable characteristics. Simple as the furniture was, it was set off 
by so many little adornments, of no value but for their taste and fancy, 
that its effect was delightful. The disposition of everything in the 
rooms, from the largest object to the least; the arrangement of colors, 
the elegant variety and contrast obtained by thrift in trifles, by delicate 
hands, clear eyes, and good sense; were at once so pleasant in them- 
selves, and so expressive of their originator, that, as Mr. Lorry stood 
looking about him, the very chairs and tables seemed to ask him, with 
something of that peculiar expression which he knew so well by this 
time, whether he approved? 

There were three rooms on a floor, and, the doors by which they 
communicated being put open that the air might pass freely through 
them all, Mr. Lorry, smilingly observant of that fanciful resemblance 
which he detected all round him, walked from one to another. The 
first was the best room, and in it were Lucie’s birds, and flowers, and 
books, and desk, and work-table, and box of water-colors; the second 
was the Doctor’s consulting-room, used also as the dining-room; the 
third, changingly speckled by the rustle of the plane-tree in the yard, 
was the Doctor’s bedroom, and there, in a corner, stood the disused 
shoe-maker’s bench and tray of tools, much as it had stood on the 
fifth floor of the dismal house by the wineshop, in the suburb of Saint 
Antoine in Paris. 

“ I wonder,” said Mr. Lorry, pausing in his looking about, “ that he 
keeps that reminder of his sufferings about him! ” 

“ And why wonder at that? ” was the abrupt inquiry that made him 
start. 

It proceeded from Miss Pross, the wild red woman, strong of hand, 
whose acquaintance he had first made at the Royal George Hotel at 
Dover, and had since improved. 

“ I should have thought — ” Mr. Lorry began. 

“Pooh! You’d have thought!” said Miss Pross; and Mr. Lorry 
left off. 

“How do you do?” inquired that lady then — sharply, and yet as 
if to express that she bore him no malice. 

“ I am pretty well, I thank you,” answered Mr. Lorry, with meek- 
ness; “how are you?” 


HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE 


89 


“ Nothing to boast of,” said Miss Pross. 

“ Indeed?” 

“ Ah! indeed! ” said Miss Pross. “ I am very much put out about 
my Ladybird.” 

‘‘ Indeed?” 

‘‘ For gracious sake say something else besides ‘ indeed,’ or you’ll 
fidget me to death,” said Miss Pross; whose character (dissociated from 
stature) was shortness. 

‘‘ Really, then? ” said Mr. Lorry, as an amendment. 

“ Really, is bad enough,” returned Miss Pross, “ but better. Yes, I 
am very much put out.” 

“ May I ask the cause? ” 

“ I don’t want dozens of people who are not at all worthy of Lady- 
bird, to come here looking after her,” said Miss Pross. 

“Do dozens come for that purpose? ” 

“ Hundreds,” said Miss Pross. 

It was characteristic of this lady (as of some other people before her 
time and since) that whenever her original proposition was questioned, 
she exaggerated it. 

“ Dear me ! ” said Mr. Lorry, as the safest remark he could think of. 

“ I have lived with the darling — or the darling has lived with me, 
and paid me for it; which she certainly should never have done, you 
may take your affidavit, if I could have afforded to keep either myself 
or her for nothing — since she was ten years old. And it’s really very 
hard,” said Miss Pross. 

Not seeing with precision what was very hard, Mr. Lorry shook his 
head; using that important part of himself as a sort of fairy cloak that 
would fit anything. 

“ All sorts of people who are not in the least degree worthy of the 
pet, are always turning up,” said Miss Pross. “ When you began it — ” 

“/ began it. Miss Pross?” 

“ Didn’t you? Who brought her father to life? ” 

“ Oh! If that was beginning it — ” said Mr. Lorry. 

“ It wasn’t ending it, I suppose? I say, when you began it, it was 
hard enough; not that I have any fault to find with Doctor Manette, 
except that he is not worthy of such a daughter, which is no imputa- 
tion on him, for it was not to be expected that anybody should be, under 
any circumstances. But it really is doubly and trebly hard to have 


90 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


crowds and multitudes of people turning up after him (I could have 
forgiven him), to take Ladybird’s affections away from me.” 

Mr. Lorry knew Miss Pross to be very jealous, but he also knew 
her by this time to be, beneath the surface of her eccentricity, one of 
those unselfish creatures — found only among women — who will, for 
pure love and admiration, bind themselves, willing slaves, to youth when 
they have lost it, to beauty that they never had, to accomplishments that 
they were never fortunate enough to gain, to bright hopes that never 
shone upon their own somber lives. He knew enough of the world 
to know that there is nothing in it better than the faithful service of 
the heart; so rendered and so free from any mercenary taint, he had 
such an exalted respect for it, that in the retributive arrangements made 
by his own mind — we all make such arrangements more or less — he 
stationed Miss Pross much nearer to the lower Angels than many ladies 
immeasurably better got up both by Nature and Art, who had bal- 
ances at Tellson’s. 

“ There never was, nor will be, but one man worthy of Ladybird,” 
said Miss Pross; “ and that was my brother Solomon, if he hadn’t made 
a mistake in life.” 

Here again : Mr. Lorry’s inquiries into Miss Pross’s personal history 
had established the fact that her brother Solomon was a heartless 
scoundrel who had stripped her of everything she possessed, as a stake 
to speculate with, and had abandoned her in her poverty for evermore, 
with no touch of compunction. Miss Pross’s fidelity of belief in Solo- 
mon (deducting a mere trifle for this slight mistake) was quite a serious 
matter with Mr. Lorry, and had its weight in his good opinion of her. 

‘‘ As we happen to be alone for the moment, and are both people of 
business,” he said, when they had got back to the drawing-room and 
had sat down there in friendly relations, “ let me ask you — does the 
Doctor, in talking with Lucie, never refer to the shoemaking time, yet? ” 

” Never.” 

” And yet keeps that bench and those tools beside him? ” 

” Ah ! ” returned Miss Pross, shaking her head. “ But I don’t say 
he don’t refer to it within himself.” 

“ Do you believe that he thinks of it much? ” 

“ I do,” said Miss Pross. 

“ Do you imagine — ” Mr. Lorry had begun, when Miss Pross took 
him up short with : 


HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE 


91 


“ Never imagine anything. Have no imagination at all.” 

“ I stand corrected; do you suppose — you go so far as to suppose, 
sometimes? ” 

“ Now and then,” said Miss Pross. 

“ Do you suppose,” Mr. Lorry went on, with a laughing twinkle in 
his bright eye, as it looked kindly at her, “ that Doctor Manette has 
any theory of his own, preserved through all those years, relative to 
the cause of his being so oppressed; perhaps, even to the name of his 
oppressor? ” 

“ I don’t suppose anything about it but what Ladybird tells me.” 

“ And that is — ” 

“ That she thinks he has.” 

“Now don’t be angry at my asking all these questions; because I 
am a mere dull man of business, and you are a woman of business.” 

“ Dull?” Miss Pross inquired, with placidity. 

Rather wishing his modest adjective away, Mr. Lorry replied, “ No, 
no, no. Surely not. To return to business. Is it not remarkable that 
Doctor Manette, unquestionably innocent of any crime as we are all 
well assured he is, should never touch upon that question? I will not 
say with me, though he had business relations with me many years 
ago, and we are now intimate; I will say with the fair daughter to 
whom he is so devotedly attached, and who is so devotedly attached to 
him? Believe me. Miss Pross, I don’t approach the topic with you, 
out of curiosity, but out of zealous interest.” 

“ Well! To the best of my understanding, and 'bad’s the best, you’ll 
tell me,” said Miss Pross, softened by the tone of the apology, “ he is 
afraid of the whole subject.” 

“Afraid?” 

“ It’s plain enough, I should think, why he may be. It’s a dreadful 
remembrance. Besides that, his loss of himself grew out of it. Not 
knowing how he lost himself, or how he recovered himself, he may 
never feel certain of not losing himself again. That alone wouldn’t 
make the subject pleasant, I should think.” 

It was a profounder remark than Mr. Lorry had looked for. 
“True,” said he, “ and fearful to reflect upon. Yet, a doubt lurks in 
my mind. Miss Pross, whether it is good for Doctor Manette to have 
that suppression always shut up within him. Indeed, it is this doubt 


92 A TALE OF TWO CITIES 

and the uneasiness it sometimes causes me that has led me to our pres- 
ent confidence.” 

“ Can’t be helped,” said Miss Pross, shaking her head. “ Touch 
that string, and he instantly changes for the worse. Better leave it 
alone. In short, must leave it alone, like or no like. Sometimes 
he gets up in the dead of the night, and will be heard, by us overhead 
there, walking up and down, walking up and down, in his room. Lady- 
bird has learnt to know then that his mind is walking up and down, 
walking up and down in his old prison. She hurries to him, and they 
go on together, walking up and down, walking up and down, until he 
is composed. But he never says a word of the true reason of his 
restlessness, to her, and she finds it best not to hint at it to him. In 
silence they go walking up and down together, walking up and down 
together, till her love and company have brought him to himself.” 

Notwithstanding Miss Pross’s denial of her own imagination, there 
was a perception of the pain of being monotonously haunted by one sad 
idea, in her repetition of the phrase, walking up and down, which testi- 
fied to her possessing such a thing. 

The corner has been mentioned as a wonderful corner for echoes; it 
had begun to echo so resoundingly to the tread of coming feet, that it 
seemed as though the very mention of that weary pacing to and fro had 
set it going. 

“ Here they are! ” said Miss Pross, rising to break up the confer- 
ence; “ and now we shall have Hundreds of people pretty soon! ” 

It was such a curious corner in its acoustical properties, such a pecu- 
liar Ear of a place, that as Mr. Lorry stood at the open window, look- 
ing for the father and daughter whose steps he heard, he fancied they 
would never approach. Not only would the echoes die away, as though 
the steps had gone ; but, echoes of other steps that never came would be 
heard in their stead, and would die away for good when they seemed 
close at hand. However, father and daughter did at last appear, and 
Miss Pross was ready at the street door to receive them. 

Miss Pross was a pleasant sight, albeit wild, and red, and grim, 
taking off her darling’s bonnet when she came upstairs, and touching 
it up with the ends of her handkerchief, and blowing the dust off it, and 
folding her mantle ready for laying by, and smoothing her rich hair 
with as much pride as she could possibly have taken in her own hair 
if she had been the vainest and handsomest of women. Her darling 


HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE 


93 


was a pleasant sight too, embracing her and thanking her, and protest- 
ing against her taking so much trouble for her — which last she only 
dared to do playfully, or Miss Pross, sorely hurt, would have retired 
to her own chamber and cried. The Doctor was a pleasant sight too, 
looking on at them, and telling Miss Pross how she spoilt Lucie, in 
accents andVith eyes that had as much spoiling in them as Miss Pross 
had, and would have had more, if it were possible. Mr. Lorry was a 
pleasant sight too, beaming at all this in his little wig, and thanking his 
bachelor stars for having lighted him in his declining years to a Home. 
But, no Hundreds of people came to see the sights, and Mr. Lorry looked 
in vain for the fulfillment of Miss Pross’s prediction. 

Dinner-time, and still no Hundreds of people. In the arrangements 
of the little household. Miss Pross took charge of the lower regions, 
and always acquitted herself marvellously. Her dinners, of a very mod- 
est quality, were so well cooked and so well served, and so neat in their 
contrivances, half English and half French, that nothing could be better. 
Miss Pross’s friendship being of the thoroughly practical kind, she had 
ravaged Soho and the adjacent provinces, in search of impoverished 
French, who, tempted by shillings and half-crowns, would impart cul- 
inary mysteries to her. From these decayed sons and daughters of 
Gaul, she had acquired such wonderful arts, that the woman and girl 
who formed the staff of domestics regarded her as quite a Sorceress, or 
Cinderella’s Godmother; who would send out for a fowl, a rabbit, a 
vegetable or two from the garden, and change them into anything she 
pleased. 

On Sundays, Miss Pross dined at the Doctor’s table, but on other 
days persisted in taking her meals at unknown periods, either in the 
lower regions, or in her own room on the second floor — a blue cham- 
ber, to which no one but her Ladybird ever gained admittance. On 
this occasion. Miss Pross, responding to Ladybird’s pleasant face and 
pleasant efforts to please her, unbent exceedingly; so the dinner was 
very pleasant, too. 

It was an oppressive day, and, after dinner, Lucie proposed that the 
wine should be carried out under the plane-tree, and they should sit 
there in the air. As everything turned upon her, and revolved about 
her, they went out under the plane-tree, and she carried the wine down 
for the special benefit of Mr. Lorry. She had installed herself, some 
time before, as Mr. Lorry’s cup-bearer; and while they sat under the 


94 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


plane-tree, talking, she kept his glass replenished. Mysterious backs 
and ends of houses peeped at them as they talked, and the plane-tree 
whispered to them in its own way above their heads. 

Still, the Hundreds of people did not present themselves. Mr. Dar- 
nay presented himself while they were sitting under the plane-tree, but 
he was only One. 

Doctor Manette received him kindly, and so did Lucie. But, Miss 
Pross suddenly became afflicted with a twitching in the head and body, 
and retired into the house. She was not unfrequently the victim of this 
disorder, and she called it, in familiar conversation, “ a fit of the jerks.” 

The doctor was in the best condition, and looked specially young. 
The resemblance between him and Lucie was very strong at such times, 
and as they sat side by side, she leaning on his shoulder, and he rest- 
ing his arm on the back of her chair, it was very agreeable to trace the 
likeness. 

He had been talking all day, on many subjects, and with unusual 
vivacity. “ Pray, Doctor Manette,” said Mr. Darnay, as they sat 
under the plane-tree — and he said it in the natural pursuit of the topic 
in hand, which happened to be the old buildings in London — “ have 
you seen much of the Tower? ” 

“Lucie and I have been there; but only casually. We have seen 
enough of it, to know that it teems with interest; little more.” 

“ I have been there, as you remember,” said Darnay, with a smile, 
though reddening a little angrily, “ in another character, and not in a 
character that gives facilities for seeing much of it. They told me a 
curious thing when I was there.” 

“ What was that? ” Lucie asked. 

“ In making some alterations the workmen came upon an old dungeon, 
which had been, for many years, built up and forgotten. Every stone 
of its inner wall was covered by inscriptions which had been carved by 
prisoners — dates, names, complaints, and prayers. LFpon a corner 
stone in an angle of the wall, one prisoner who seemed to have gone 
to execution, had cut as his last work, three letters. They were done 
with some very poor instrument, and hurriedly, with an unsteady hand. 
At first, they were read as D. I. C. ; but, on being more carefully exam- 
ined, the last letter was found to be G. There was no record or legend 
of any prisoner with those initials, and many fruitless guesses were 
made what the name could have been. At length, it was suggested 


HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE 


95 


that the letters were not initials, but the complete word, Dig. The floor 
was examined very carefully under the inscription, and, in the earth 
beneath a stone, or tile, or some fragment of pavement, were found 
the ashes of a paper, mingled with the ashes of a small leathern case 
or bag. What the unknown prisoner had written will never be read, 
but he had written something, and hidden it away to keep it from the 
gaoler.’’ 

“ My father,” exclaimed Lucie, “ you are ill! ” 

He had suddenly started up, with his hand to his head. His manner 
and his look quite terrified them all. 

“ No, my dear, not ill. There are large drops of rain falling, and 
they made me start. We had better go in.” 

He recovered himself almost instantly. Rain was really falling in 
large drops, and he showed the back of his hand with rain-drops on it. 
But, he said not a single word in reference to the discovery, that had 
been told of, and, as they went into the house, the business eye of 
Mr. Lorry either detected or fancied it detected, on his face, as it 
turned towards Charles Darnay, the same singular look that had been 
upon it when it turned towards him in the passages of the Court 
House. 

He recovered himself so quickly, however, that Mr. Lorry had doubts 
of his business eye. The arm of the golden giant in the hall was not 
more steady than he was, when he stopped under it to remark to them 
that he was not yet proof against slight surprises (if he ever would be), 
and that the rain had startled him. 

Tea-time, and Miss Pross making tea, with another fit of the jerks 
upon her, and yet no Hundreds of people. Mr. Carton had lounged in, 
but he made only Two. 

The night was so very sultry, that although they sat with doors and 
windows open, they were overpowered by heat. When the tea-table 
was done with, they all moved to one of the windows, and looked out 
into the heavy twilight. Lucie sat by her father; Darnay sat beside 
her; Carton leaned against a window. The curtains were long and 
white, and some of the thunder-gusts that whirled into the corner, caught 
them up to the ceiling, and waved them like spectral wings. 

“ The rain-drops are still falling, large, heavy, and few,” said the 
Doctor Manette. “ It comes slowly.” 

“ It comes surely,” said Carton. 


A TALE OF TfVO CITIES 


96 

They spoke low, as people watching and waiting mostly do ; as people 
in a dark room, watching and waiting for lightning, always do. 

There was a great hurry in the streets, of people speeding away to 
get shelter before the storm broke; the wonderful corner for echoes 
resounded with the echoes of footsteps coming and going, yet not a 
footstep was there. 

“ A multitude of people, and yet a solitude I ’’ said Darnay, when 
they had listened for a while. 

“ Is it not impressive, Mr. Darnay?” asked Lucie. “ Sometimes, I 
have sat here of an evening, until I have fancied — but even the shade 
of a foolish fancy makes me shudder to-night, when all is so black and 
solemn — ” 

“ Let us shudder too. We may know what it is.” 

“ It will seem nothing to you. Such whims are only impressive as we 
originate them, I think; they are not to be communicated. I have 
sometimes sat alone here of an evening, listening, until I have made 
the echoes out to be the echoes of all the footsteps that are coming 
by and by into our lives.” 

“ There is a great crowd coming one day into our lives, if that be 
so,” Sydney Carton struck in, in his moody way. 

The footsteps were incessant, and the hurry of them became more 
and more rapid. The corner echoed and re-echoed with the tread of 
feet; some, as it seemed, under the windows; some, as it seemed, in the 
room; some coming, some going, some breaking off, some stopping alto- 
gether; all in the distant streets, and not one within sight. 

“ Are all these footsteps destined to come to all of us. Miss Manette, 
or are we to divide them among us? ” 

“ I don’t know, Mr. Darnay; I told you it was a foolish fancy, but 
you asked for it. When I have yielded myself to it, I have been alone, 
and then I have imagined them the footsteps of the people who are to 
come into my life, and my father’s.” 

“ I take them into mine! ” said Carton. ask no questions and 
make no stipulations. There is a great crowd bearing down upon us. 
Miss Manette, and I see them — by the lightning.” He added the 
last words, after there had been a vivid flash which had shown him 
lounging in the window. 

“And I hear them!” he added again, after a peal of thunder. 
“ Here they come, fast, fierce, and furious ! ” 


HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE 


97 


It was the rush and roar of rain that he typified, and it stopped 
him, for no voice could be heard in it. A memorable storm of thunder 
and lightning broke with that sweep of water, and there was not a 
moment’s interval in crash, and fire, and rain, until after the moon 
rose at midnight. 

The great bell of Saint Paul’s was striking One in the cleared air, 
when Mr. Lorry, escorted by Jerry, high-booted and bearing a lantern, 
set forth on his return-passage to Clerkenwell. There were solitary 
patches of road on the way between Soho and Clerkenwell, and Mr. 
Lorry, mindful of foot-pads, always retained Jerry for this service: 
though it was usually performed a good two hours earlier. 

“What a night it has been! Almost a night, Jerry,” said Mr. 
Lorry, “ to bring the dead out of their graves.” 

“ I never see the night myself, master — nor yet I don’t expect to — 
what would do that,” answered Jerry. 

“ Good-night, Mr. Carton,” said the man of business. “ Good- 
night, Mr. Darnay. Shall we ever see such a night again, together 1 ” 

Perhaps. Perhaps, see the great crowd of people with its rush and 
roar, bearing down upon them, too. 


CHAPTER VII 


MONSEIGNEUR IN TOWN 

M onseigneur, one of the great lords in power at the Court, 
held his fortnightly reception in his grand hotel in Paris. Mon- 
seigneur was in his inner room, his sanctuary of sanctuaries, the Holiest 
of Holiests to the crowd of worshippers in the suite of rooms without. 
Monseigneur was about to take his chocolate. Monseigneur could 
swallow a great many things with ease, and was by some few sullen 
minds supposed to be rather rapidly swallowing France; but, his morn- 
ing’s chocolate could not so much as get into the throat of Monseigneur, 
without the aid of four strong men besides the Cook. 

Yes. It took four men, all four a-blaze with gorgeous decoration, 
and the Chief of them unable to exist with fewer than two gold watches 
in his pocket, emulative of the noble and chaste fashion set by Monsei- 
gneur, to conduct the happy chocolate to Monseigneur’s lips. One lackey 
carried the chocolate-pot into the sacred presence; a second, milled 
and frothed the chocolate with the little instrument he bore for that 
function; a third, presented the favored napkin; a fourth (he of the 
two gold watches), poured the chocolate out. It was impossible for 
Monseigneur to dispense with one of these attendants on the chocolate 
and hold his high place under the admiring Heavens. Deep would have 
been the blot upon his escutcheon if his chocolate had been ignobly 
waited on by only three men; he must have died of two. 

Monseigneur had been out at a little supper last night, where the 
Comedy and the Grand Opera were charmingly represented. Monsei- 
gneur was out at a little supper most nights, with fascinating company. 
So polite and so impressible was Monseigneur, that the Comedy and 
the Grand Opera had far more influence with him in the tiresome articles 
of state affairs and state secrets, than the needs of all France. A 
happy circumstance for France, as the like always is for all countries 
similarly favored! — always was for England (by way of example) in 
the regretted days of the merry Stuart who sold it. 

Monseigneur had one truly noble idea of general public business, 
which was, to let everything go on in its own way; of particular public 
business. Monseigneur had the other truly noble idea that it must all go 

98 


u 

MON SEIGNEUR IN TOWN 


99 

his way — tend to his own power and pocket. Of his pleasures, gen- 
eral and particular, Monseigneur had the other truly noble idea, that 
the world was made for them. The text of his order (altered from 
the original by only a pronoun, which is not much) ran: “The earth 
and the fullness thereof are mine, saith Monseigneur.” 

Yet, Monseigneur had slowly found that vulgar embarrassments crept 
into his affairs, both private and public; and he had, as to both classes 
of affairs, allied himself perforce with a Farmer-General. As to 
finances public, because Monseigneur could not make anything at all 
of them, and must consequently let them out to somebody who could; 
as to finances private, because Farmer-»Generals were rich, and Monsei- 
gneur, after generations of great luxury and expense, was growing poor. 
Hence Monseigneur had taken his sister from a convent, while there was 
yet time to ward off the impending veil, the cheapest garment she could 
wear, and had bestowed her as a prize upon a very rich Farmer-General, 
poor in family. Which Farmer-General, carrying an appropriate cane 
with a golden apple on the top of it, was now among the company in 
the outer rooms, much prostrated before by mankind — always except- 
ing superior mankind of the blood of Monseigneur, who, his own wife 
included, looked down upon him with the loftiest contempt. 

A sumptuous man was the Farmer-General. Thirty horses stood in 
his stables, twenty-four male domestics sat in his halls, s.\x body-women 
waited on his wife. As one who pretended to do nothirig but plunder 
and forage where he could, the Farmer-General — howscever his matri- 
monial relations conduced to social morality — was at I ,ast the great- 
est reality among the personages who attended at the lotel of Mon- 
seigneur that day. 

For, the rooms, though a beautiful scene to look at, ai. \ adorned 
with every device of decoration that the taste and skill of the time could 
achieve, were, in truth, not a sound business; considered with any ref- 
erence to the scarecrows in the rags and nightcaps elsewhere (and not 
so far off, either, but that the watching towers of Notre Dame, almost 
equi-distant from the two extremes, could see them both), they would 
^ave been an exceedingly uncomfortable business — if that could 
i)ave been anybody’s business, at the house of Monseigneur. Military 
officers destitute of military knowledge; naval officers with no idea of 
a ship; civil officers without a notion of affairs; brazen ecclesiastics, of 
the worst world worldly, with sensual eyes, loose tongues, and looser 


lOO 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


lives; all totally unfit for their several callings, all lying horribly in 
pretending to belong to them, but all nearly or remotely of the order 
of Monseigneur, and therefore foisted on all public employments from 
which anything was to be got; these were to be told off by the score 
and the score. People not immediately connected with Monseigneur or 
the state, yet equally unconnected with anything that was real, or with 
lives passed in traveling by any straight road to any true earthly end, 
were no less abundant. Doctors who made great fortunes out of dainty 
remedies for imaginary disorders that never existed, smiled upon their 
courtly patients in the ante-chambers of Monseigneur. Projectors who 
had discovered every kind of remedy for the little evils with which 
the state was touched, except the remedy of setting to work in earnest 
to root out a single sin, poured their distracting babble into any ears 
they could lay hold of, at the reception of Monseigneur. Unbelieving 
Philosophers who were remodeling the world with words, and making 
card-towers of Babel to scale the skies with, talked with Unbelieving 
Chemists who had an eye on the transmutation of metals, at this won- 
derful gathering accumulated by Monseigneur. Exquisite gentlemen of 
the finest breeding, which was at that remarkable time — and has been 
since — to be known by its fruits of indifference to every natural subject 
of human interest, were in the most exemplary state of exhaustion, at 
the hotel of Monseigneur. Such homes had these various notabilities 
left behind them in the fine world of Paris, that the spies among the 
assembled devotees of Monseigneur — forming a goodly half of the 
polite company — would have found it hard to discover among the 
angels of that sphere one solitary wife, who, in her manners and appear- 
ance, owned to being a Mother. Indeed, except for the mere act of 
bringing a troublesome creature into this world — which does not go 
far towards the realization of the name of mother — there was no 
such thing known to the fashion. Peasant women kept the unfashion- 
able babies close, and brought them up, and charming grandmammas 
of sixty dressed and supped as at twenty. 

The leprosy of unreality disfigured every human creature in attend- 
ance upon Monseigneur. In the outermost room were half a dozen 
exceptional people who had had, for a few years, some vague misgiving 
in them that things in general were going rather wrong. As a promis- 
ing way of setting them right, half of the half-dozen had become mem- 
bers of a fantastic sect of Convulsionists, and were even then consider- 


MONSEIGNEUR IN TOWN 


lOI 


ing within themselves whether they should foam, rage, roar, and turn 
cataleptic on the spot — thereby setting up a highly intelligible finger- 
post to the Future, for Monseigneur’s guidance. Besides these Der- 
vishes, were other three who had rushed into another sect, which mended 
matters with a jargon about “ the Center of Truth,” holding that Man 
had got out of the Center of Truth — which did not need much demon- 
stration — but had not got out of the Circumference, and that he was to 
be kept from flying out of the Circumference, and was even to be shoved 
back into the Center, by fasting and seeing of spirits. Among these, 
accordingly, much discoursing with spirits went on — and it did a world 
of good which never became manifest. 

But, the comfort was, that all the company at the grand hotel of 
Monseigneur were perfectly dressed. If the Day of Judgment had 
only been ascertained to be a dress day, everybody there would have 
been eternally correct. Such frizzling and powdering and sticking up of 
hair, such delicate complexions artificially preserved and mended, such 
gallant swords to look at, and such delicate honor to the sense of smell, 
would surely keep anything going, for ever and ever. The exquisite gen- 
tlemen of the finest breeding wore little pendent trinkets that chinked 
as they languidly moved; these golden fetters rang like precious little 
bells; and what with that ringing, and with the rustle of silk and brocade 
and fine linen, there was a flutter in the air that fanned Saint Antoine 
and his devouring hunger far away. 

Dress was the one unfailing talisman and charm used for keeping all 
things in their places. Everybody was dressed for a Fancy Ball that 
was never to leave off. From the Palace of the Tuileries, through 
Monseigneur and the whole Court, through the Chambers, the Tribunals 
of Justice, and all society (except the scarecrows), the Fancy Ball 
descended to the Common Executioner : who, in pursuance of the charm, 
was required to officiate “ frizzled, powdered, in a gold-laced coat, 
pumps, and white silk stockings.” At the gallows and the wheel — the 
ax was a rarity — Monsieur Paris, as it was the episcopal mode among 
his brother Professors of the provinces. Monsieur Orleans, and the 
rest, to call him, presided in this dainty dress. And who among the 
company at Monseigneur’s reception in that seventeen hundred and 
eightieth year of our Lord, could possibly doubt, that a system rooted 
in a frizzled hangman, powdered, gold-laced, pumped, and white-silk 
stockinged, would see the very stars out ! 


102 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Monseigneur having eased his four men of their burdens and taken 
his chocolate, caused the doors of the Holiest of Holiests to be thrown 
open, and issued forth. Then, what submission, what cringing and 
fawning, what servility, what abject humiliation ! As to bowing down 
in body and spirit, nothing in that way was left for Heaven — which 
may have been one among other reasons why the worshippers of Mon- 
seigneur never troubled it. 

Bestowing a word of promise here and a smile there, a whisper on 
one happy slave and a wave of the hand on another, Monseigneur 
affably passed through his rooms to the remote region of the Circum- 
ference of Truth. There, Monseigneur turned, and came back again 
and so in due course of time got himself shut up in his sanctuary by 
the chocolate sprites, and was seen no more. 

The show being over, the flutter in the air became quite a little storm, 
and the precious little bells went ringing downstairs. There was soon 
but one person left of all the crowd, and he, with his hat under his arm 
and his snuff-box in his hand, slowly passed among the mirrors on his 
way out. 

“ I devote you,” said this person, stopping at the last door on his 
way, and turning in the direction of the sanctuary, “ to the Devil ! ” 

With that, he shook the snuff from his fingers as if he had shaken 
the dust from his feet, and quietly walked downstairs. 

He was a man of about sixty, handsomely dressed, haughty in man- 
ner, and with a face like a fine mask. A face of a transparent paleness; 
every feature in it clearly defined; one set expression on it. The nose, 
beautifully formed otherwise, was very slightly pinched at the top of 
each nostril. In those two compressions, or dints, the only little change 
that the face ever showed, resided. They persisted in changing some- 
times, and they would be occasionally dilated and contracted by some- 
thing like a faint pulsation; then, they gave a look of treachery, and 
cruelty, to the whole countenance. Examined with attention, its capacity 
of helping such a look was to be found in the line of the mouth, and the 
lines of the orbits of the eyes, being much too horizontal and thin : still, 
in the effect the face made, it was a handsome face, and a remarkable 
one. 

Its owner went downstairs into the court-yard, got into his carriage, 
and drove away. Not many people had talked with him at the recep- 
tion; he had stood in a little space apart, and Monseigneur might have 


MONSEIGNEUR IN TOWN 


103 


been warmer in his manner. It appeared, under the circumstances, 
rather agreeable to him to see the common people dispersed before his 
horses, and often barely escaping from being run down. His man drove 
as if he were charging an enemy, and the furious recklessness of the man 
brought no check into the face, or to the lips, of the master. The com- 
plaint had sometimes made itself audible, even in that deaf city and 
dumb age, that, in the narrow streets without footways, the fierce patri- 
cian custom of hard driving endangered and maimed the mere vulgar 
in a barbarous manner. But, few cared enough for that to think of it a 
second time, and, in this matter, as in all others, the common wretches 
were left to get out of their difficulties as they could. 

With a wild rattle and clatter, and an inhuman abandonment of con- 
sideration not easy to be understood in these days, the carriage dashed 
through streets and swept round corners, with women screaming before 
it, and men clutching each other and clutching children out of its way. 
At last, swooping at a street corner by a fountain, one of its wheels 
came to a sickening little jolt, and there was a loud cry from a number 
of voices, and the horses reared and plunged. 

But fgr the latter inconvenience, the carriage probably would not 
have stopped; carriages were often known to drive on, and leave their 
wounded behind, and why not? But the frightened valet had got down 
in a hurry, and there were twenty hands at the horses’ bridles. 

“ What has gone wrong? ” said Monsieur, calmly looking out. 

A tall man in a nightcap had caught up a bundle from among the 
feet of the horses, and had laid it on the basement of the fountain, 
and was down in the mud and wet, howling over it like a wild animal. 

“Pardon, Monsieur the Marquis!” said a ragged and submissive 
man, “ it is a child.” 

“ Why does he make that abominable noise? Is it his child? ” 

“ Excuse me. Monsieur the Marquis — it is a pity — yes.” 

The fountain was a little removed; for the street opened, where it 
was, into a space some ten or twelve yards square. As the tall man 
suddenly got up from the ground, and came running at the carriage. 
Monsieur the Marquis clapped his hand for an instant on his sword- 
hilt. 

“ Killed! ” shrieked the man, in wild desperation, extending both arms 
at their length above his head, and staring at him. “ Dead! ” 

The people closed round, and looked at Monsieur the Marquis. 


104 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


There was nothing revealed by the many eyes that looked at him but 
watchfulness and eagerness; there was no visible menacing or anger. 
Neither did the people say anything; after the first cry, they had been 
silent, and they remained so. The voice of the submissive man who 
had spoken, was flat and tame in its extreme submission. Monsieur 
the Marquis ran his eyes over them all, as if they had been mere rats 
come out of their holes. 

He took out his purse. 

“ It is extraordinary to me,” said he, ‘‘ that you people cannot take 
care of yourselves and your children. One or the other of you is for 
ever in the way. How do I know what injury you have done my 
horses? See! Give him that.” 

He threw out a gold coin for the valet to pick up, and all the heads 
craned forward that all the eyes might look down at it as it fell. The 
tall man called out again with a most unearthly cry, “ Dead 1 ” 

He was arrested by the quick arrival of another man, for whom the 
rest gave way. On seeing him, the miserable creature fell upon his 
shoulder, sobbing and crying, and pointing to the fountain, where some 
women were stooping over the motionless bundle, and moving gently 
about it. They were as silent, however, as the men.” 

“ I know all, I know all,” said the last comer. “ Be a brave man, 
my Gaspard! It is better for the poor little plaything to die so, than 
to live. It has died in a moment without pain. Could it have lived 
an hour as happily? ” 

“ You are a philosopher, you there,” said the Marquis, smiling. 
“ How do they call you? ” 

“ They call me Defarge.” 

“ Of what trade? ” 

“ Monsieur the Marquis, vendor of wine.” 

“ Pick up that, philosopher and vendor of wine,” said the Marquis, 
throwing him another gold coin, “ and spend it as you will. The horses 
there; are they right? ” 

Without deigning to look at the assemblage a second time. Monsieur 
the Marquis leaned back in his seat, and was just being driven away 
with the air of a gentleman who had accidently broke some common 
thing, and had paid for it, and could afford to pay for it; when his 
ease was suddenly disturbed by a coin flying into his carriage, and ring- 
ing on its floor. 


MONSEIGNEUR IN TOWN 


105 

“Hold I” said Monsieur the Marquis. “Hold the horses I Who 
threw that? ** 

He looked to the spot where Defarge the vendor of wine had stood, 
a moment before; but the wretched father was grovelling on his face 
on the pavement in that spot, and the figure that stood beside him was 
the figure of a dark stout woman, knitting. 

“ You dogs I ” said the Marquis, but smoothly, and with an unchanged 
front, except as to the spots on his nose: “ I would ride over any of you 
very willingly, and exterminate you from the earth. If I knew which 
rascal threw at the carriage, and if that brigand were sufficiently near 
it, he should be crushed under the wheels.” 

So cowed was their condition, and so long and hard their experience 
of what such a man could do to them, within the law and beyond it, 
that not a voice, or a hand, or even an eye was raised. Among the 
men, not one. But the woman who stood knitting looked up steadily, 
and looked at the Marquis in the face. It was not for his dignity to 
notice it; his contemptuous eyes passed over her, and over all the other 
rats; and he leaned back in his seat again, and gave the word “ Go on! ” 

He was driven on, and other carriages came whirling by in quick suc- 
cession; the Minister, the State-Projector, the Farmer-General, the Doc- 
tor, the Lawyer, the Ecclesiastic, the Grand Opera, the Comedy, the 
whole Fancy Ball, in a bright continuous flow, came whirling by. 
The rats had crept out of their holes to look on, and they re- 
mained looking on for hours; soldiers and police often passing be- 
tween them and the spectacle, and making a barrier behind which 
they slunk, and through which they peeped. The father had long ago 
taken up his bundle and hidden himself away with it, when the women 
who tended the bundle while it lay on the base of the fountain, sat there 
watching the running of the water and the rolling of the Fancy Ball — 
when the one woman who had stood conspicuous, knitting, still knitted 
on with the steadfastness of Fate. The water of the fountain ran, the 
swift river ran, the day ran into evening, so much life in the city ran 
into death according to rule, time and tide waited for no man, the rats 
were sleeping close together in their dark holes again, the Fancy Ball was 
lighted up at supper, all things ran their course. 


MONSEIGNEUR IN THE COUNTRY 


BEAUTIFUL landscape, with the corn bright in it, but not 



abundant. Patches of poor rye where corn should have been, 
patches of poor peas and beans, patches of most coarse vegetable sub- 
stitutes for wheat. On inanimate nature, as on the men and women who 
cultivated it, a prevalent tendency towards an appearance of vegetating 
unwillingly — a dejected disposition to give up, and wither away. 

Monsieur the Marquis in his traveling carriage (which might have 
been lighter), conducted by four post-horses and two postilions, fagged 
up a steep hill. A blush on the countenance of Monsieur the Marquis 
was no impeachment of his high breeding; it was not from within; it 
was occasioned by an external circumstance beyond his control — the 
setting sun. 

The sunset struck so brilliantly into the traveling carriage when it 
gained the hill-top, that its occupant was steeped in crimson. “ It will 
die out,” said Monsieur the Marquis, glancing at his hands, “ directly.” 

In effect, the sun was so low that it dipped at the moment. When 
the heavy drag had been adjusted to the wheel, and the carriage slid 
downhill, with a cinderous smell, in a cloud of dust, the red glow de- 
parted quickly; the sun and the Marquis going down together, there 
was no glow left when the drag was taken off. 

But, there remained a broken country, bold and open, a little village at 
the bottom of the hill, a broad sweep and rise beyond it, a church-tower, 
a windmill, a forest for the chase, and a crag with the fortress on it 
use^ as a prison. Round upon all these darkening objects as the night 
drew on, the Marquis looked, with the air of one who was coming near 
home. 

The village had its one poor street, with its poor brewery, poor tan- 
nery, poor tavern, poor stable-yard for relays of post-horses, poor foun- 
tain, all usual poor appointments. It had its poor people too. All its 
people were poor, and many of them were sitting at their doors, shred- 
ding spare onions and the like for supper, while many were at the foun- 


MONSEIGNEUR IN THE COUNTRY 


107 


tain, washing leaves, and grasses, and any such small yieldings of the 
earth that could be eaten. Expressive signs of what made them poor, 
were not wanting; the tax for the state, the tax for the church, the 
tax for the lord, tax local and tax general, were to be paid here and 
to be paid there, according to solemn inscription in the little village, until 
the wonder was, that there was any village left unswallowed. 

Few children were to be seen, and no dogs. As to the men and 
women, their choice on earth was stated in the prospect — life on the 
lowest terms that could sustain it, down in the little village under the 
mill; or captivity and Death in the dominant prison on the crag. 

Heralded by a courier in advance, and by the cracking of his postil- 
ions’ whips, which twined snake-like about their heads in the evening air,, 
as if he came attended by the Furies, Monsieur the Marquis drew up 
in his traveling carriage at the posting-house gate. It was hard by 
the fountain, and the peasants suspended their operations to look at 
him. He looked at them, and saw in them, without knowing it, the 
slow sure filing down of misery-worn face and figure, that was to make 
the meagerness of Frenchmen an English superstition which should 
survive the truth through the best part of a hundred years. 

Monsieur the Marquis cast his eyes over the submissive faces that 
drooped before him, as the like of himself had drooped before Mon- 
seigneur of the Court — only the difference was, that these faces drooped 
merely to suffer and not to propitiate — when a grizzled mender of the 
roads joined the group. 

“ Bring me hither that fellow! ” said the Marquis to the courier. 

The fellow was brought, cap in hand, and the other fellows closed 
round to look and listen, in the manner of the people at the Paris foun- 
tain. 

“ I passed you on the road? ” 

“ Monseigneur, it is true. I had the honor of being passed on the 
road.” 

Coming up the hill, and at the top of the hill, both? ” ^ 

“ Monseigneur, it is true.” 

“ What did you look at, so fixedly? ” 

“ Monseigneur, I looked at the man.” 

He stooped a little, and with his tattered blue cap pointed under the 
carriage. All his fellows stooped to look under the carriage. 

” What man, pig? And why look there? ” 


io8 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“Pardon, Monseigneur; he swung by the chain of the shoe — the 
drag.” 

“ Who? ” demanded the traveler. 

“ Monseigneur, the man.” 

“May the Devil carry away these idiots! How do you call the 
man? You know all the men of this part of the country. Who was 
he?” 

“Your clemency, Monsiegneur! He was not of this part of the 
country. Of all the days of my life, I never saw him.” 

“ Swinging by the chain? To be suffocated? ” 

“ With your gracious permission, that was the wonder of It, Mon- 
seigneur. His head hanging over — like this ! ” 

He turned himself sideways to the carriage, and leaned back, with 
his face thrown up to the sky, and his head hanging down ; then recov- 
ered himself, fumbled with his cap, and made a bow. 

“ What was he like? ” 

“ Monseigneur, he was whiter than the miller. All covered with 
dust, white as a specter, tall as a specter! ” 

The picture produced an immense sensation In the little crowd; but 
all eyes, without comparing notes with other eyes, looked at Monsieur 
the Marquis. Perhaps to observe whether he had any specter on his 
conscience. 

“ Truly, you did well,” said the Marquis, felicitously sensible that 
such vermin were not to ruffle him, “ to see a thief accompanying my 
carriage, and not open that great mouth of yours. Bah! Put him 
aside. Monsieur Gabelle ! ” 

Monsieur Gabelle was the Postmaster, and some other taxing func- 
tionary united; he had come out with great obsequiousness to assist at 
this examination, and had held the examined by the drapery of his 
arm in an official manner. 

“Bah! Go aside!” said Monsieur Gabelle. 

“ Lay hands on this stranger if he seeks to lodge in your village 
to-night, and be sure that his business is honest, Gabelle.” 

“ Monseigneur, I am flattered to devote myself to your orders.” 

“ Did he run away, fellow? — where Is that Accursed? ” 

The accursed was already under the carriage with some half-dozen 
particular friends, pointing out the chain with his blue cap. Some half- 


MONSEIGNEUR IN THE COUNTRY 


109 

dozen other particular friends promptly hauled him out, and presented 
him breathless to Monsieur the Marquis. 

“ Did the man run away, Dolt, when we stopped for the drag?” 

“ Monseigneur, he precipitated himself over the hillside, head first, 
as a person plunges into the river.” 

“ See to it, Gabelle. Go on! ” 

The half-dozen who were peering at the chain were still among the 
wheels, like sheep ; the wheels turned so suddenly that they were lucky 
to save their skins and bones; they had very little else to* save, or they 
might not have been so fortunate. 

The burst with which the carriage started out of the village and up 
the rise beyond, was soon cheeked by the steepness of the hill. Grad- 
ually, it subsided to a foot pace, swinging and lumbering upward among 
the many sweet scents of a summer night. The postilions, with a thou- 
sand gossamer gnats circling about them in lieu of the Furies, quietly 
mended the points to the lashes of their whips; the valet walked by 
the horses; the courier was audible, trotting on ahead into the dim 
distance. 

At the steepest point of the hill there was a little burial-ground, with 
a Cross and a new large figure of Our Saviour on it; it was a poor figure 
in wood, done by some inexperienced rustic carver, but he had studied 
the figure from the life — his own life, maybe — for it was dreadfully 
spare and thin. 

To this distressful emblem of a great distress that had long been 
growing worse, and was not at its worst, a woman was kneeling. She 
turned her head as the carriage came up to her, rose quickly, and pre- 
sented herself at the carriage-door. 

“ It is you. Monseigneur 1 Monseigneur, a petition.” 

With an exclamation of impatience, but with his unchangeable face. 
Monseigneur looked out. 

“ How, then! What is it? Always petitions! ” 

“ Monseigneur. For the love of the great God! My husband, the 
forester.” 

“What of your husband, the forester? Always the same with you 
people. He cannot pay something?” 

“ He has paid all. Monseigneur. He is dead.” 

“ Well! He is quiet. Can I restore him to you? ” 


no 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ Alas, no, Monseigneur! But he lies yonder, under a little heap of 
poor grass.” 

“Well?” 

“ Monseigneur, there are so many little heaps of poor grass.” 

“Again, well?” 

She looked an old woman, but was young. Her manner was one of 
passionate grief; by turns she clasped her veinous and knotted hands 
together with wild energy, and laid one of them on the carriage-door 
— tenderly, caressingly, as if it had been a human breast, and could 
be expected to feel the appealing touch. 

“ Monseigneur, hear me 1 Monseigneur, hear my petition ! My hus- 
band died of want; so many die of want; so many more will die of 
want.” 

“ Again, well? Can I feed them? ” 

“ Monseigneur, the good God knows; but I don’t ask it. My peti- 
tion is, that a morsel of stone or wood, with my husband’s name, may 
be placed over him to show where he lies. Otherwise, the place will be 
quickly forgotten, it will never be found when I am dead of the same 
malady, I shall be laid under some other heap of poor grass. Mon- 
seigneur, they are so many, they increase so fast, there is so much 
want. Monseigneur 1 Monseigneur I ” 

The valet had put her away from the door, the carriage had broken 
into a brisk trot, the postilions had quickened the pace, she was left 
far behind, and Monseigneur, again escorted by the Furies, was rapidly 
diminishing the league or two of distance that remained between him 
and his chateau. 

The sweet scents of the summer night rose all around him, and rose, 
as the rain falls, impartially, on the dusty, ragged, and toil-worn group 
at the fountain not far away; to whom the mender of roads, with the 
aid of the blue cap without which he was nothing, still enlarged upon 
his man like a specter, as long as they could bear it. By degrees, as 
they could bear no more, they dropped off one by one, and lights 
twinkled in little casements; which lights, as the casements darkened, 
and more stars came out, seemed to have shot up into the sky instead 
of having been extinguished. 

The shadow of a large high-roofed house, and of many overhanging 
trees, was upon Monsieur the Marquis by that time; and the shadow 


MONSEIGNEUR IN THE COUNTRY 


III 


was exchanged for the light of a flambeau, as his carriage stopped, and 
the great door of his chateau was opened to him. 

“ Monsieur Charles, whom I expect; is he arrived from England? ” 

“ Monseigneur, not yet.” 


CHAPTER IX 


THE GORGON'S HEAD 

I T was a heavy mass of building, that chateau of Monsieur the Mar- 
quis, with a large stone court-yard before it, and two stone sweeps 
of staircase meeting in a stone terrace before the principal door. A 
stony business altogether, with heavy stone balustrades, and stone urns, 
and stone flowers, and stone faces of men, and stone heads of lions, in 
all directions. As if the Gorgon’s head had surveyed it, when it was 
finished, two centuries ago. 

Up the broad flight of shallow steps. Monsieur the Marquis, flam- 
beau preceded, went from his carriage, sufficiently disturbing the dark- 
ness to elicit loud remonstrance from an owl in the roof of the great 
pile of stable building away among the trees. All else was so quiet, 
that the flambeau carried up the steps, and the other flambeau held at 
the great door, burnt as if they were in a close room of state, instead 
of being in the open night-air. Other sound than the owl’s voice there 
was none, save the falling of a fountain into its stone basin; for, it was 
one of those dark nights that hold their breath by the hour together, 
and then heave a long low sigh, and hold their breath again. 

The great door clanged behind him, and Monsieur the Marquis 
crossed a hall grim with certain old boar-spears, swords, and knives of 
the chase; grimmer with certain heavy riding-rods and riding-whips, of 
which many a peasant, gone to his benefactor Death, had felt the weight 
when his lord was angry. 

Avoiding the larger rooms, which were dark and made fast for the 
night. Monsieur the Marquis, with his flambeau-bearer going on before, 
went up the staircase to a door in a corridor. This thrown open, ad- 
mitted him to his own private apartment of three rooms: his bed- 
chamber and two others. High vaulted rooms with cool uncarpeted 
floors, great dogs upon the hearths for the burning of wood in winter 
time, and all luxuries befitting the state of a marquis in a luxurious age 
and country. The fashion of the last Louis but one, of the line that was 
never to break — the fourteenth Louis — was conspicuous in their rich 

1 12 


THE GORGON^ S HEAD 


113 

furniture; but, It was diversified by many objects that were illustrations 
of old pages in the history of France. 

A supper-table was laid for two, in the third of the rooms; a round 
room. In one of the chateau’s four extinguisher-topped towers. A small 
lofty room, with its window wide open, and the wooden jalousie-blinds 
closed, so that the dark night only showed In slight horizontal lines of 
black, alternating with their broad lines of stone color. 

“ My nephew,” said the Marquis glancing at the supper preparation; 
“ they said he was not arrived.” 

Nor was he; but, he had been expected with Monseigneur. 

“Ah! It Is not probable he will arrive to-night; nevertheless, leave 
the table as It Is. I shall be ready In a quarter of an hour.” 

In a quarter of an hour Monseigneur was ready, and sat down alone 
to his sumptuous and choice supper. His chair was opposite to the 
window, and he had taken his soup, and was raising his glass of Bor- 
deaux to his lips, when he put it down. 

“ What Is that? ” he calmly asked, looking with attention at the hori- 
zontal lines of black and stone color. 

“ Monseigneur? That? ” 

“ Outside the blinds. Open the blinds.” 

It was done. 

“Well?” 

“ Monseigneur, It Is nothing. The trees and the night are all that 
are here.” 

The servant who spoke, had thrown the blinds wide, had looked 
out into the vacant darkness, and stood, with that blank behind him, 
looking round for instructions. 

“ Good,” said the imperturbable master. “ Close them again.” 

That was done too, and the Marquis went on with his supper. He 
was half way through It, when he again stopped with his glass In his 
hand, hearing the sound of wheels. It came on briskly, and came up 
to the front of the chateau. 

“ Ask who is arrived.” 

It was the nephew of Monseigneur. He had been some few leagues 
behind Monseigneur, early In the afternoon. He had diminished the 
distance rapidly, but not so rapidly as to come up with Monseigneur on 
the road. He had heard of Monseigneur, at the posting-house, as being 
before him. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


114 

He was to be told (said Monseigneur) that supper awaited him then 
and there, and that he was prayed to come to it. In a little while he 
came. He had been known in England as Charles Darnay. 

Monseigneur received him in a courtly manner, but they did not shake 
hands. 

“ You left Paris yesterday, sir? ” he said to Monseigneur, as he took 
his seat at table. 

“Yesterday. And you?” 

“ I come direct.” 

“ From London? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ You have been a long time coming,” said the Marquis, with a 
smile. 

“ On the contrary; I come direct.” 

“ Pardon me! I mean, not a long time on the journey; a long time 
intending the journey.” 

“ I have been detained by ” — the nephew stopped a moment in his 
answer — “ various business.” 

“ Without doubt,” said the polished uncle. 

So long as a servant was present, no other words passed between 
them. When coffee had been served and they were alone together, 
the nephew, looking at the uncle and meeting the eyes of the face that 
was like a fine mask, opened a conversation. 

“ I have come back, sir, as you anticipate, pursuing the object that 
took me away. It carried me into great and unexpected peril; but it 
is a sacred object, and if it had carried me to death I hope it would have 
sustained me.” 

“ Not to death,” said the uncle; “ it is not necessary to say, to death.” 

“ I doubt, sir,” returned the nephew, “ whether, if it had carried me 
to the utmost brink of death, you would have cared to stop me there.” 

The deepened marks in the nose, and the lengthening of the fine 
straight lines in the cruel face, looked ominous as to that; the uncle 
made a graceful gesture of protest, which was so clearly a slight form 
of good breeding that it was not reassuring. 

“ Indeed, sir,” pursued the nephew, “ for anything I know, you 
may have expressly worked to give a more suspicious appearance to the 
suspicious circumstances that surrounded me.” 

“ No, no, no,” said the uncle, pleasantly. 


THE GORGON^S HEAD 


115 

“ But, however that may be,” resumed the nephew, glancing at him 
with deep disgust, “ I know that your diplomacy would stop me by any 
means, and would know no scruple as to means.” 

“ My friend, I told you so,” said the uncle, with a fine pulsation in 
the two marks. “ Do me the favor to recall that I told you so long 
ago.” 

“ I recall it.” 

“ Thank you,” said the Marquis — very sweetly indeed. 

His tone lingered in the air, almost like the tone of a musical instru- 
ment. 

“ In effect, sir,” pursued the nephew, ‘‘ I believe it to be at once your 
bad fortune, and my good fortune, that has kept me out of a prison 
in France here.” 

“ I do not quite understand,” returned the uncle, sipping his coffee. 
“ Dare I ask you to explain? ” 

“ I believe that if you were not in disgrace with the Court, and had 
not been overshadowed by that cloud for years past, a letter de cachet 
would have sent me to some fortress indefinitely.” 

“ It is possible,” said the uncle, with great calmness. “ For the 
honor of the family, I could even resolve to incommode you to that 
extent. Pray excuse me ! ” 

“ I perceive that, happily for me, the Reception of the day before 
yesterday was, as usual, a cold one,” observed the nephew. 

“ I would not say happily, my friend,” returned the uncle, with 
refined politeness.; “ I would not be sure of that. A good opportunity 
for consideration, surrounded by the advantages of solitude, might influ- 
ence your destiny to far greater advantage than you influence it for 
yourself. But it is useless to discuss the question. I am, as you say, 
at a disadvantage. These little instruments of correction, these gentle 
aids to the power and honor of families, these slight favors that might 
so incommode you, are only to be obtained now by interest and im- 
portunity. They are sought by so many, and they are granted (com- 
paratively) to so few! It used not to be so, but France in all such 
things is changed for the worse. Our not remote ancestors held the 
right of life and death over the surrounding vulgar. From this room, 
many such dogs have been taken out to be hanged; In the next room 
(my bedroom), one fellow to our knowledge, was poniarded on the 
spot for professing some Insolent delicacy respecting his daughter — 


/ 


ii6 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


his daughter? We have lost many privileges; a new philosophy has 
become the mode; and the assertion of our station, in these days, might 
(I do not go so far as to say would, but might) cause us real incon- 
venience. All very bad, very bad 1 ” 

The Marquis took a gentle little pinch of snuff, and shook his head; 
as elegantly despondent as he could becomingly be of a country still 
containing himself, that great means of regeneration. 

“ We have so asserted our station, both in the old time and in the 
modern time also,” said the nephew, gloomily, “ that I believe our 
name to be more detested than any name in France.” 

“ Let us hope so,” said the uncle. “ Detestation of the high is the 
involuntary homage of the low.” 

“ There is not,” pursued the nephew, in his former tone, “ a face I 
can look at, in all this country round about us, which looks at me with 
any deference on it but the dark deference of fear and slavery.” 

“ A compliment,” said the Marquis, “ to the grandeur of the fam- 
ily, merited by the manner in which the family has sustained its grandeur. 
Hah! ” And he took another gentle little pinch of snuff, and lightly 
(frossed his legs. 

But, when his nephew, leaning an elbow on the table, covered his 
eyes thoughtfully and dejectedly with his hand, the fine mask looked at 
him sideways with a stronger concentration of keenness, closeness, and 
dislike, than was comportable with its wearer’s assumption of indiffer- 
ence. 

“ Repression is the only lasting philosophy. The dark deference of 
fear and slavery, my friend,” observed the Marquis, “ will keep the 
dogs obedient to the whip, as long as this roof,” looking up to it, “ shuts 
out the sky.” 

That might not be so long as the Marquis supposed. If a picture 
of the chateau as it was to be a very few years hence, and of fifty like 
it as they too were to be a very few years hence, could have been shown 
to him that night, he might have been at a loss to claim his own from 
the ghastly, fire-charred, plunder-wrecked ruins. As for the roof he 
vaunted, he might have found that shutting out the sky in a new way — 
to wit, for ever, from the eyes of the bodies into which its lead was 
fired, out of the barrels of a hundred thousand muskets. 

“ Meanwhile,” said the Marquis, “ I will preserve the honor and 


THE GORGON^S HEAD 


117 

repose of the family, if you will not. But you must be fatigued. Shall 
we terminate our conference for the night? ” 

“ A moment more.” 

“ An hour, if you please.” 

“ Sir,” said the nephew, “ we have done wrong, and are reaping 
the fruits of wrong.” 

fVe have done wrong?” repeated the Marquis, with an inquiring 
smile, and delicately pointing, first to his nephew, then to himself. 

“ Our family, our honorable family, whose honor is of so much ac- 
count to both of us, in such different ways. Even in my father’s time, 
we did a world of wrong injuring every human creature who came be- 
tween us and our pleasure, whatever it was. Why need I speak of my 
father’s time, when it is equally yours? Can I separate my father’s 
twin-brother, joint inheritor, and next successor, from himself?” 

“ Death has done that ! ” said the Marquis. 

“ And has left me,” answered the nephew, “ bound to a system that is 
frightful to me, responsible for it, but powerless in it; seeking to execute 
the last request of my dear mother’s lips, and obey the last look of my 
dear mother’s eyes, which Implored me to have mercy and to redress; 
and tortured by seeking assistance and power in vain.” 

“ Seeking them from me, my nephew,” said the Marquis, touching 
him on the breast with his forefinger — they were now standing by the 
hearth — “ you will for ever seek them in vain, be assured.” 

Every fine straight line in the clear whiteness of his face, was cruelly, 
craftily, and closely compressed, while he stood looking quietly at his 
nephew, with his snuffbox in his* hand. Once again he touched him on 
the breast, as though his finger were the fine point of a small sword, with 
which, in delicate finesse, he ran him through the body, and said. 

“ My friend, I will die, perpetuating the system under which I have 
lived.” 

When he had said it, he took a culminating pinch of snuff, and put 
his box in his pocket. 

“ Better to be a rational creature,” he added then, after ringing a 
small bell on the table, “ and accept your natural destiny. But you are 
lost. Monsieur Charles, I see.” 

“ This property and France are lost to me,” said the nephew, sadly; 
“ I renounce them.” 


ii8 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ Are they both yours to renounce? France may be, but is the prop- 
erty? It is scarcely worth mentioning; but, is it yet? ” 

“ I had no intention, in the words I used, to claim it yet. If it passed 
to me from you, to-morrow — ” 

“ Which I have the vanity to hope is not probable.” 

“ — or twenty years hence — ” 

“You do me too much honor,” said the Marquis; “still, I prefer 
that supposition.” 

“ — I would abandon it, and live otherwise and elsewhere. It is 
little to relinquish. What is it but a wilderness of misery and ruin ! ” 

“ Hah! ” said the Marquis, glancing round the luxurious room. 

“To the eye it is fair enough, here; but seen in its integrity, under 
the sky, and by the daylight, it is a crumbling tower of waste, misman- 
agement, extortion, debt, mortgage, oppression, hunger, nakedness, and 
suffering.” 

“ Hah! ” said the Marquis again, in a well-satisfied manner. 

“ If it ever becomes mine, it shall be put into some hands better qual- 
ified to free it slowly (if such a thing is possible) from the weight that 
drags it down, so that the miserable people who cannot leave it and 
who have been long wrung to the last point of endurance, may, in an- 
other generation, suffer less; but it is not for me. There is a curse on 
it, and on all this land.” 

“ And you? ” said the uncle. “ Forgive my curiosity; do you, under 
your new philosophy, graciously intend to live? ” 

“ I must do, to live, what others of my countrymen, even with nobil- 
ity at their backs, may have to do some day — work.” 

“ In England, for example? ” 

“ Yes. The family honor, sir, is safe from me in this country. The 
family name can suffer from me in no other, for I bear it in no other.” 

The ringing of the bell had caused the adjoining bedchamber to be 
lighted. It now shone brightly, through the door of communication. 
The Marquis looked that way, and listened for the retreating step of 
his valet. 

“ England is very attractive to you, seeing how indifferently you have 
prospered there,” he observed then, turning his calm face to his nephew 
with a smile. 

“ I have already said, that for my prospering there, I am sensible I 
may be indebted to you, sir. For the rest, it is my Refuge,” 


THE GORGON^S HEAD 


119 

They say, those boastful English, that it is the Refuge of many. 
You know a compatriot who has found a Refuge there? A Doctor? ” 

“ Yes.” 

‘‘With a daughter?” 

“ Y^s.” 

“Yes,” said the Marquis. “You are fatigued. Good-night!” 

As he bent his head in his most courtly manner, there was a secrecy 
in his smiling face, and he conveyed an air of mystery to those words, 
which struck the eyes and ears of his nephew forcibly. At the same 
time, the thin straight lines of the setting of the eyes, and the thin 
straight lips, and the markings in the nose, curved with a sarcasm that 
looked handsomely diabolic. 

“ Yes,” repeated the Marquis. “ A Doctor with a daughter. Yes. 
So commences the new philosophy! You are fatigued. Good-night! ” 

It would have been of as much avail to interrogate any stone face 
outside the chateau as to interrogate that face of his. The nephew 
looked at him, in vain, in passing on to the door. 

“ Good-night ! ” said the uncle. “ I look to the pleasure of seeing 
you again in the morning. Good repose ! Light Monsieur my nephew 
to his chamber there ! And burn Monsieur my nephew in his bed, if you 
will,” he added to himself, before he rang his little bell again, and sum- 
moned his valet to his own bed-room. 

The valet come and gone. Monsieur the Marquis walked to and 
fro in his loose chamber-robe, to prepare himself gently for sleep, that 
hot still night. Rustling about the room, his softly-slippered feet mak- 
ing no noise on the floor, he moved like a refined tiger: — looked like 
some enchanted marquis of the impenitently wicked sort, in story, whose 
periodical change into tiger form was either just going off, or just com- 
ing on. 

He moved from end to end of his voluptuous bedroom, looking again 
at the scraps of the day’s journey that came unbidden into his mind; 
the slow toil up the hill at sunset, the setting sun, the descent, the mill, 
the prison on the crag, the little village in the hollow, the peasants at 
the fountain, and the mender of roads with his blue cap pointing out 
the chain under the carriage. That fountain suggested the Paris foun- 
tain, the little bundle lying on the step, the women bending over it, and 
the tall man with his arms up, crying, “ Dead! ” 

“ I am cool now,” said Monsieur the Marquis, “ and may go to bed.” 


120 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


So, leaving only one light burning on the large hearth, he let his thin 
gauze curtains fall around him, and heard the night break its silence 
with a long sigh as he composed himself to sleep. 

The stone faces on the outer walls stared blindly at the black night 
for three heavy hours ; for three heavy hours, the horses in the stables 
rattled at their racks, the dogs barked, and the owl made a noise with 
very little resemblance in it to the noise conventionally assigned to the 
owl by men-poets. But it is the obstinate custom of such creatures 
hardly ever to say what is set down for them. 

For three heavy hours, the stone faces of the chateau, lion and human, 
stared blindly at the night. Dead darkness lay on all the landscape, 
dead darkness added its own hush to the hushing dust on all the roads. 
The burial-place had got to the pass that its little heaps of poor grass 
were undistinguishable from one another; the figure on the Cross might 
have come down, for anything that could be seen of it. In the village, 
taxers and taxed were fast asleep. Dreaming, perhaps, of banquets, 
as the starved usually do, and of ease and rest, as the driven slave and 
the yoked ox may, its lean inhabitants slept soundly, and were fed and 
freed. 

The fountain in the village flowed unseen and unheard, and the foun- 
tain at the chateau dropped unseen and unheard — both melting away, 
like the minutes that were falling from the spring of Time — through 
three dark hours. Then, the grey water of both began to be ghostly 
in the light, and the eyes of the stone faces of the chateau were opened. 

Lighter and lighter, until at last the sun touched the tops of the still 
trees, and poured its radiance over the hill. In the glow, the water 
of the chateau fountain seemed to turn to blood, and the stone faces 
crimsoned. The carol of the birds was loud and high, and, on the 
weather-beaten sill of the great window of the bedchamber of Monsieur 
the Marquis, one little bird sang its sweetest song with all its might. 
At this, the nearest stone face seemed to stare amazed, and, with open 
mouth and dropped underjaw, looked awe-stricken. 

Now, the sun was full up, and movement began in the village. Case- 
ment windows opened, crazy doors were unbarred, and people came 
forth shivering — chilled, as yet, by the new sweet air. Then began 
the rarely lightened toil of the day among the village population. Some, 
to the fountain; some, to the fields; men and women here, to dig and 
delve; men and women there, to see to the poor live stock, and lead 


THE GORGON^S HEAD 


I2I 


the bony cows out, to such pasture as could be found by the roadside. 
In the church and at the Cross, a kneeling figure or two; attendant on 
the latter prayers, the led cow, trying for a breakfast among the weeds 
at its foot. 

The chateau awoke later, as became its quality, but awoke gradually 
and surely. First, the lonely boar-spears and knives of the chase had 
been reddened as of old; then, had gleamed trenchant in the morning 
sunshine; now, doors and windows were thrown open, horses in their 
stables looked round over their shoulders at the light and freshness 
pouring in at doorways, leaves sparkled and rustled at iron-grated win- 
dows, dogs pulled hard at their chains, and reared impatient to be 
loosed. 

All these trivial incidents belonged to the routine of life, and the re- 
turn of morning. Surely, not so the ringing of the great bell of the 
chateau, nor the running up and down the stairs; nor the hurried figures 
on the terrace; nor the booting and tramping here and there and every- 
where, nor the quick saddling of horses and riding away? 

What winds conveyed this hurry to the grizzled mender of roads, 
already at work on the hill-top beyond the village, with his day’s din- 
ner (not much to carry) lying in a bundle that it was worth no crow’s 
while to peck at, on a heap of stones? Had the birds, carrying some 
grains of it to a distance, dropped one over him as they sow chance 
seeds? Whether or no, the mender of roads ran, on the sultry morn- 
ing, as if for his life, down the hill, knee-high in dust, and never stopped 
till he got to the fountain. 

All the people of the village were at the fountain, standing about in 
their depressed manner, and whispering low, but showing no other emo- 
tions than grim curiosity and surprise. The led cows, hastily brought 
in and tethered to anything that would hold them, were looking stupidly 
on, or lying down chewing the cud of nothing particularly repaying their 
trouble, which they had picked up in their interrupted saunter. Some 
of the people of the chateau, and some of those of the posting-house, 
and all the taxing authorities, were armed more or less, and were 
crowded on the other side of the little street in a purposeless way, 
that was highly fraught with nothing. Already, the mender of roads 
had penetrated into the midst of a group of fifty particular friends, 
and was smiting himself in the breast with his blue cap. What did all 
this portend, and what portended the swift hoisting-up of Monsieur 


122 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Gabelle behind a servant on horseback, and the conveying away of the 
said Gabelle (double-laden though the horse was) at a gallop, like a 
new version of the German ballad of Leonora? 

It portended that there was one stone face too many, up at the 
chateau. 

The Gorgon had surveyed the building again in the night, and had 
added the one stone face wanting; the stone face for which it had 
waited through about two hundred years. 

It lay back on the pillow of Monsieur the Marquis. It was like a 
fine mask, suddenly started, made angry, and petrified. Driven home 
into the heart of the stone figure attached to it, was a knife. Round 
its hilt was a frill of paper, on which was scrawled: 

“ Drive him fast to his tomb. This, from Jacques.” 


CHAPTER X 
TWO PROMISES 

M ore months, to the number of twelve, had come and gone, and 
Mr. Charles Darnay was established in England as a higher 
teacher of the French language who was conversant with French litera- 
ture. In this age, he would have been a Professor; in that age, he 
was a Tutor. He read with young men who could find any leisure and 
interest for the study of a living tongue spoken all over the world, and 
he cultivated a taste for its stores of knowledge and fancy. He could 
write of them, besides, in sound English, and render them into sound 
English. Such masters were not at that time easily found; Princes that 
had been, and Kings that were to be, were not yet of the Teacher class, 
and no ruined nobility had dropped out of Tellson’s ledgers, to turn 
cooks and carpenters. As a tutor, whose attainments made the student’s 
way unusually pleasant and profitable, and as an elegant translator who 
brought something to his work besides mere dictionary knowledge, young 
Darnay soon became known and encouraged. He was well acquainted, 
moreover, with the circumstances of his country, and those were of 
ever-growing interest. So, with great perseverance and untiring in- 
dustry, he prospered. 

In London, he had expected neither to walk on pavements of gold, 
nor to lie on beds of roses; if he had had any such exalted expectation, 
he would not have prospered. He had expected labor, and he found 
it, and did it, and made the best of it. In this, his prosperity consisted. 

A certain portion of his time was passed at Cambridge, where he 
read with undergraduates as a sort of tolerated smuggler who drove a 
contraband trade in European languages, instead of conveying Greek 
and Latin through the Custom-house. The rest of his time he passed 
in London. 

Now, from the days when it was always summer in Eden, to these 
days when it is mostly winter in fallen latitudes, the world of a man 
has invariably gone one way — Charles Darnay’s way — the way of the 
love of a woman. 

He had lov^d Lucie Manette from the hour of his danger. He had 

123 


124 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


never heard a sound so sweet and dear as the sound of her compassionate 
voice; he had never seen a face so tenderly beautiful as hers, when it 
was confronted with his own on the edge of the grave that had been 
dug for him. But, he had not yet spoken to her on the subject; the 
assassination at the deserted chateau far away beyond the heaving water 
and the long, long, dusty roads — the solid stone chateau which had 
itself become the mere mist of a dream — had been done a year, and 
he had never yet, by so much as a single spoken word, disclosed to 
her the state of his heart. 

That he had his reasons for this, he knew full well. It was again a 
summer day when, lately arrived in London from his college occupa- 
tion, he turned into the quiet corner in Soho, bent on seeking an oppor- 
tunity of opening his mind to Doctor Manette. It was the close of 
the summer day, and he knew Lucie to be out with Miss Pross. 

He found the Doctor reading in his arm-chair at a window. The 
energy which had at once supported him under his old sufferings and 
aggravated their sharpness, had been gradually restored to him. He 
was now a very energetic man indeed, with great firmness of purpose, 
strength of resolution, and vigor of action. In his recovered energy 
he was sometimes a little fitful and sudden, as he had at first been in 
the exercise of his other recovered faculties; but, this had never been 
frequently observable, and had grown more and more rare. 

He studied much, slept little, sustained a great deal of fatigue with 
ease, and was equably cheerful. To him, now entered Charles Darnay, 
at sight of whom he laid aside his book and held out his hand. 

“ Charles Darnay! I rejoice to see you. We have been counting on 
your return these three or four days past. Mr. Stryver and Sydney 
Carton were both here yesterday, and both made you out to be more 
than due.” 

“ I am obliged to them for their interest in the matter,” he answered, 
a little coldly as to them, though very warmly as to the Doctor. “ Miss 
Manette — ” 

“ Is well,” said the Doctor, as he stopped short, “ and your return 
will delight us all. She has gone out on some household matters, but 
will soon be home.” 

“ Doctor Manette, I knew she was from home. I took the oppor- 
tunity of her being from home, to beg to speak to you.” 

There was a blank silence. 


TWO PROMISES 


125 

Yes?” said the Doctor, with evident constraint. “Bring your 
chair here, and speak on.” 

He complied as to the chair, but appeared to find the speaking on 
less easy. 

“ I have had the happiness, Doctor Manette, of being so intimate 
here,” so he at length began, “ for some year and a half, that I hope 
the topic on which I am about to touch may not — ” 

He was stayed by the Doctor’s putting out his hand to stop him. 
When he had kept it so a little while, he said, drawing it back: 

“ Is Lucie the topic? ” 

“ She is.” 

“ It is hard for me to speak of her at any time. It is very hard for 
me to hear her spoken of in that tone of yours, Charles Darnay.” 

“ It is a tone of fervent admiration, true homage, and deep love. 
Doctor Manette ! ” he said deferentially. 

There was another blank silence before her father rejoined: 

“ I believe it. I do you justice; I believe it.” 

His constraint was so manifest, and it was so manifest, too, that it 
originated in an unwillingness to approach the subject, that Charles 
Darnay hesitated. 

“ Shall I go on, sir? ” 

Another blank. 

“ Yes, go on.” 

“ You anticipate what I would say, though you cannot know how 
earnestly I say it, how earnestly I feel it, without knowing my secret 
heart, and the hopes and fears and anxieties with which it has long 
been laden. Dear Doctor Manette, I love your daughter fondly, dearly, 
disinterestedly, devotedly. If ever there were love in the world, I 
love her. You have loved yourself; let your old love speak for me! ” 

The Doctor sat with his face turned away, and his eyes bent on the 
ground. At the last words, he stretched out his hand again, hurriedly, 
and cried: 

“ Not that, sir! Let that be! I adjure you, do not recall that! ” 

His cry was so like a cry of actual pain, that it rang in Charles Dar- 
nay’s ears long after he had ceased. He motioned with the hand he 
had extended, and it seemed to be an appeal to Darnay to pause. The 
latter so received it, and remained silent. 

“ I ask your pardon,” said the Doctor, in a subdued tone, after some 


126 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


moments. “ I do not doubt your loving Lucie; you may be satisfied of 
it.” 

He turned towards him in his chair, but did not look at him, or 
raise his eyes. His chin dropped upon his hand, and his white hair 
overshadowed his face: 

“ Have you spoken to Lucie? ” 

“ No.” 

“ Nor written? ” 

“ Never.” 

“ It would be ungenerous to affect not to know that your self-denial 
is to be referred to your consideration for her father. Her father 
thanks you.” 

He offered his hand; but his eyes did not go with it. 

“ I know,” said Darnay, respectfully, “ how can I fail to know. 
Doctor Manette, I who have seen you together from day to day, that 
between you and Miss Manette there is an affection so unusual, so 
touching, so belonging to the circumstances in which it has been nur- 
tured, that it can have few parallels, even in the tenderness between a 
father and child. I know, Dr. Manette — how can I fail to know — 
that, mingled with the affection and duty of a daughter who has become 
a woman, there is, in her heart, towards you, all the love and reliance 
of infancy itself. I know that, as in her childhood she had no parent, 
so she is now devoted to you with all the constancy and fervor of her 
present years and character, united to the trustfulness and attachment 
of the early days in which you were lost to her. I know perfectly well 
that if you had been restored to her from the world beyond this life, 
you could hardly be invested, in her sight, with a more sacred character 
than that in which you are always with her. I know that when she is 
clinging to you, the hands of baby, girl, and woman, all in one, are 
round your neck. I know that in loving you she sees and loves her 
mother at her own age, sees and loves you at my age, loves her mother 
broken-hearted, loves you through your dreadful trial and in your 
blessed restoration. I have known this, night and day, since I have 
known you in your home.” 

Her father sat silent, with his face bent down. His breathing was a 
little quickened; but he repressed all other signs of agitation. 

“ Dear Doctor Manette, always knowing this, always seeing her and 
you with this hallowed light about you, I have forborne, and forborne. 


TWO PROMISES 


127 

as long as it was in the nature of man to do it. I have felt, and do 
even now feel, that to bring my love — even mine — between you, is 
to touch your history with something not quite so good as itself. But I 
love her. Heaven is my witness that I love her! ” 

“ I believe it,” answered her father, mournfully. “ I have thought 
so before now. I believe it.” 

‘‘ But, do not believe,” said Darnay, upon whose ear the mournful 
voice struck with a reproachful sound, “ that if my fortune were so 
cast as that, being one day so happy as to make her my wife, I must 
at any time put any separation between her and you, I could or would 
breathe a word of what I now say. Besides that I should know it to be 
hopeless, I should know it to be a baseness. If I had any such possibil- 
ity, even at a remote distance of years, harbored in my thoughts, and 
hidden in my heart — if it ever had been there — if it ever could be 
there — I could not now touch this honored hand.” 

He laid his own upon it as he spoke. 

“ No, dear Doctor Manette. Like you, a voluntary exile from 
France; like you, driven from it by its distractions, oppressions, and 
miseries; like you, striving to live away from it by my own exertions, and 
trusting in a happier future; I look only to sharing your fortunes, shar- 
ing your life and home, and being faithful to you to the death. Not 
to divide with Lucie her privilege as your child, companion, and friend; 
but to come in aid of it, and bind her closer to you, if such a thing can 
be.” 

His touch still lingered on her father’s hand. Answering the touch 
for a moment, but not coldly, her father rested his hands upon the 
arms of his chair, and looked up for the first time since the beginning 
of the conference. A struggle was evidently in his face; a struggle 
with that occasional look which had a tendency in it to dark doubt and 
dread. 

“ You speak so feelingly and so manfully, Charles Darnay, that I 
thank you with all my heart, and will open all my heart — or nearly so. 
Have you any reason to believe that Lucie loves you? ” 

“ None. As yet, none.” 

“ Is it the immediate object of this conference, that you may at once 
ascertain that, with my knowledge? ” 

“ Not even so. I might not have the hopefulness to do it for weeks; 

I might (mistaken or not mistaken) have that hopefulness to-morrow.” 


128 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ Do you seek any guidance from me? ” 

“ I ask none, sir. But I have thought it possible that you might 
have it in your power, if you should deem it right, to give me some.” 

“ Do you seek any promise from me ! ” 

“ I do seek that.” 

“What is it?” 

“ I well understand that, without you, I could have no hope. I well 
understand that, even if Miss Manette held me at this moment in her 
innocent heart — do not think I have the presumption to assume so 
much — I could retain no place in it against her love for her father.” 

“ If that be so, do you see what, on the other hand, is involved in it? ” 

“ I understand equally well, that a word from her father in any 
suitor’s favor, would outweigh herself and all the world. For which 
reason. Doctor Manette,” said Darnay, modestly but firmly, “ I would 
not ask that word, to save my life.” 

“ I am sure of it. Charles Darnay, mysteries arise out of close love, 
as well as out of wide division; in the former case, they are subtle and 
delicate, and difiicult to penetrate. My daughter Lucie is, in this one 
respect, such a mystery to me ; I can make no guess at the state of her 
heart.” 

“ May I ask, sir, if you think she is — ” As he hesitated, her father 
supplied the rest. 

“ Is sought by any other suitor?” 

“ It is what I meant to say.” 

Her father considered a little before he answered: 

“ You have seen Mr. Carton here, yourself. Mr. Stryver is here too, 
occasionally. If it be at all, it can only be by one of these.” 

“ Or both,” said Darnay. 

“ I had not thought of both; I should not think either, likely. You 
want a promise from me. Tell me what it is.” 

“ It is, that if Miss Manette should bring to you at any time, on 
her own part, such a confidence as I have ventured to lay before you, 
you will bear testimony to what I have said, and to your belief in it. 
I hope you may be able to think so well of me, as to urge no influence 
against me. I say nothing more of my stake in this; this is what I ask. 
The condition on which I ask it, and which you have an undoubted 
right to require, I will observe immediately.” 


TWO PROMISES 


129 


“ I give the promise,” said the Doctor, “ without any condition. I 
believe your object to be, purely and truthfully, as you have stated it. 
I believe your Intention is to perpetuate, and not to weaken, the ties 
between me and my other and far dearer self. If she should ever tell 
me that you are essential to her perfect happiness, I will give her to 
you. If there were — Charles Darnay, if there were — ” 

The young man had taken his hand gratefully; their hands were 
joined as the doctor spoke: 

“ — any fancies, any reasons, any apprehensions, anything whatso- 
ever, new or old, against the man she really loved — the direct respon- 
sibility thereof not lying on his head — they should all be obliterated 
for her sake. She Is everything to me; more to me than suffering, 
more to me than wrong, more to me — Well! This Is idle talk.” 

So strange was the way in which he faded Into silence, and so strange 
his fixed look when he had ceased to speak, that Darnay felt his own 
hand turn cold in the hand that slowly released and dropped It. 

“You said something to me,” said Doctor Manette, breaking into a 
smile. “ What was It you said to me? ” 

He was at a loss how to answer, until he remembered having spoken 
of a condition. Relieved as his mind reverted to that, he answered: 

“ Your confidence in me ought to be returned with full confidence on 
my part. My present name, though but slightly changed from my 
mother’s. Is not, as you will remember, my own. I wish to tell you 
what that Is, and why I am In England.” 

“ Stop I ” said the Doctor of Beauvais. 

“ I wish it, that I may the better deserve your confidence, and have 
no secret from you.” 

“Stop!” 

For an Instant, the Doctor even had his two hands at his ears; for 
another instant, even had his two hands laid on Darnay’s lips. 

“ Tell me when I ask you, not now. If your suit should prosper, if 
Lucie should love you, you shall tell me on your marriage morning. 
Do you promise? ” 

“ Willingly.” 

“ Give me your hand. She will be home directly, and it Is better 
she should not see us together to-night. Go ! God bless you ! ” 

It was dark when Charles Darnay left him, and It was an hour later 


130 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


and darker when Lucie came home; she hurried into the room alone 
— for Miss Pross had gone straight upstairs — and was surprised to 
find his reading-chair empty. 

“ My father I ” she called to him. “ Father dear! ” 

Nothing was said in answer, but she heard a low hammering sound 
in his bedroom. Passing lightly across the intermediate room, she 
looked in at his door and came running back frightened, crying to her- 
self, with her blood all chilled, “ What shall I do 1 What shall I do 1 ’’ 
Her uncertainty lasted but a moment; she hurried back, and tapped 
at his door, and softly called to him. The noise ceased at the sound 
of her voice, and he presently came out to her, and they walked up and 
down together for a long time. 

She came down from her bed, to look at him in his sleep that night. 
He slept heavily, and his tray of shoemaking tools, and his old unfin- 
ished work, were all as usual. 


CHAPTER XI 


A COMPANION PICTURE 

S YDNEY,” said Mr. Stryver, on that self-same night, or morning, 
to his jackal; “mix another bowl of punch; I have something to 
say to you.” 

Sydney had been working double tides that night, and the night before, 
and the night before that, and a good many nights in succession, making 
a grand clearance among Mr. Stryver’s papers before the setting in of 
the Long Vacation. The clearance was effected at last; the Stryver 
arrears were handsomely fetched up; everything was got rid of until 
November should come with its fogs atmospheric and fogs legal, and 
bring grist to the mill again. 

Sydney was none the livelier and none the soberer for so much 
application. It had taken a deal of extra wet-towelling to pull him 
through the night; a correspondingly extra quantity of wine had pre- 
ceded the towelling; and he was in a very damaged condition, as he now 
pulled his turban off and threw it into the basin in which he had steeped 
it at intervals for the last six hours. 

“ Are you mixing that other bowl of punch? ” said Stryver the portly, 
with his hands in his waistband, glancing round from the sofa where he 
lay on his back. 

“ I am.” 

“ Now, look here ! I am going to tell you something that will rather 
surprise you, and that perhaps will make you think me not quite as 
shrewd as you usually do think me. I intend to marry.” 

“ Do you ? ” 

“Yes. And not for money. What do you say now?” 

“ I don’t feel disposed to say much. Who is she? ” 

“ Guess.” 

“ Do I know her? ” 

“Guess.” 

“ I am not going to guess, at five o’clock in the morning, with my 
brains frying and sputtering in my head. If you want me to guess, you 
must ask me to dinner.” 

131 


132 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ Well then, I’ll tell you,” said Stryver, coming slowly into a sitting 
posture. “ Sydney, I rather despair of making myself intelligible to 
you, because you are such an insensible dog.” 

“ And you,” returned Sydney, busy concocting the punch, “ are such a 
sensitive and poetical spirit.” 

“ Come I ” rejoined Stryver, laughing boastfully, “ though I don’t 
prefer any claim to being the soul of Romance (for I hope I know .bet- 
ter), still I am a tenderer sort of fellow than youT 

“ You are a luckier, if you mean that.” 

“ I don’t mean that. I mean I am a man of more — more — ” 

“ Say gallantry, while you are about it,” suggested Carton. 

“ Well! I’ll say gallantry. My meaning is that I am a man,” said 
Stryver, inflating himself at his friend as he made the punch, “ who 
cares more to be agreeable, who takes more pains to be agreeable, who 
knows better how to be agreeable, in a wonian’s society, than you do.” 

“ Go on,” said Sydney Carton. 

“No; but before I go on,” said Stryver, shaking his head in his 
bullying way. “ I’ll have this out with you. You’ve been at Dr. Man- 
ette’s house as much as I have, or more than I have. Why, I have been 
ashamed of your moroseness there! Your manners have been of that 
silent and sullen and hang-dog kind, that, upon my life and soul, I have 
been ashamed of you, Sydney! ” 

“ It should be very beneficial to a man in your practice at the bar, 
to be ashamed of anything,” returned Sydney; “you ought to be much 
obliged to me.” 

“ You shall not get off in that way,” rejoined Stryver, shouldering 
the rejoinder at him; “no, Sydney, it’s my duty to tell you — and I 
tell you to your face to do you good — that you are a de-vilish ill-condi- 
tioned fellow in that sort of society. You are a disagreeable fellow.” 

Sydney drank a bumper of the punch he had made, and laughed. 

“ Look at me! ” said Stryver, squaring himself; “ I have less need 
to make myself agreeable than you have, being more independent in 
circumstances. Why do I do it? ” 

“ I never saw you do it yet,” muttered Carton. 

“ I do it because it’s politic; I do it on principle. And look at me ! I 
get on.” 

“ You don’t get on with your account of your matrimonial intentions,” 


A COMPANION PICTURE 


133 

answered Carton, with a careless air; “ I wish you would keep to that. 
As to me — will you never understand that I am incorrigible?” 

He asked the question with some appearance of scorn. 

“ You have no business to be incorrigible,” was his friend’s answer, 
delivered in no very soothing tone. 

“I have no business to be, at all, that I know of,” said Sydney 
Carton. “ Who is the lady? ” 

“ Now, don’t let my announcement of the name make you uncom- 
fortable, Sydney,” said Mr. Stryver, preparing him with ostentatious 
friendliness for the disclosure he was about to make, “ because I know 
you don’t mean half you say; and if you meant it all, it would be of no 
importance. I make this little preface, because you once mentioned the 
young lady to me in slighting terms.” 

“I did?” 

“ Certainly; and in these chambers.” 

Sydney Carton looked at his punch and looked at his complacent 
friend ; drank his punch and looked at his complacent friend. 

“ You made mention of the young lady as a golden-haired doll. The 
young lady is Miss Manette. If you had been a fellow of any sensitive- 
ness or delicacy of feeling in that kind of way, Sydney, I might have 
been a little resentful of your employing such a designation; but you 
are not. You want that sense altogether; therefore I am no more an- 
noyed when I think of the expression, than I should be annoyed by a 
man’s opinion of a picture of mine, who had no eye for pictures; or of a 
piece of music of mine, who had no ear for music.” 

Sydney Carton drank the punch at a great rate; drank it by bumpers, 
looking at his friend. 

“ Now you know all about it, Syd,” said Mr. Stryver. “ I don’t care 
about fortune ; she is a charming creature, and I have made up my mind 
to please myself: on the whole, I think I can afford to please myself. 
She will have in me a man already pretty well off, and a rapidly rising 
man, and a man of some distinction; it is a piece of good fortune for 
her, but she is worthy of good fortune. Are you astonished? ” 

Carton, still drinking the punch, rejoined, “ Why should I be aston- 
ished? ” 

“ You approve? ” 

Carton, still drinking the punch, rejoined, “ Why should I not ap- 
prove? ” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“Well!” said his friend Stryver, “you take it more easily than I 
fancied you would, and are less mercenary on my behalf than I thought 
you would be; though, to be sure, you know well enough by this time 
that your ancient chum is a man of a pretty strong will. Yes, Sydney, 
I have had enough of this style of life, with no other as a change from 
it; I feel that it is a pleasant thing for a man to have a home when he 
feels inclined to go to it (when he doesn’t, he can stay away), and I 
feel that Miss Manette will tell well in any station, and will always do 
me credit. So I have made up my mind. And now, Sydney, old boy, I 
want to say a word to you about your prospects. You are in a bad 
way, you know; you really are in a bad way. You don’t know the 
value of money, you live hard, you’ll knock up one of these days, and 
be ill and poor; you really ought to think about a nurse.” 

The prosperous patronage with which he said it, made him look twice 
as big as he was, and four times as offensive. 

“ Now, let me recommend you,” pursued Stryver, “ to look it in the 
face. I have looked it in the face, in my different way; look it in the 
face, you, in your different way. Marry. Provide somebody to take 
care of you. Never mind your having no enjoyment of women’s society, 
nor understanding of it, nor tact for it. Find out somebody. Find 
out some respectable woman with a little property — somebody in the 
landlady way, or lodging-letting way — and marry her, against a rainy 
day. That’s the kind of thing for you. Now think of it, Sydney.” 

“ I’ll think of it,” said Sydney. 


CHAPTER XII 


THE FELLOW OF DELICACY 

M r. STRYVER having made up his mind to that magnanimous 
bestowal of good fortune on the Doctor’s daughter, resolved to 
make her happiness known to her before he left town for the Long 
Vacation. After some mental debating of the point, he came to the 
conclusion that it would be as well to get all the preliminaries done with, 
and they could then arrange at their leisure whether he should give her 
his hand a week or two before Michaelmas Term, or in the little Christ- 
mas vacation between it and Hilary. 

As to the strength of his case, he had not a doubt about it, but clearly 
saw his way to the verdict. Argued with the jury on substantial worldly 
grounds — the only grounds ever worth taking into account — it was a 
plain case, and had not a weak spot in it. He called himself for the 
plaintiff, there was no getting over his evidence, the counsel for the 
defendant threw up his brief, and the jury did not even turn to con- 
sider. After trying it, Stryver, C. J., was satisfied that no plainer case 
could be. 

Accordingly, Mr. Stryver inaugurated the Long Vacation with a 
formal proposal to take Miss Manette to Vauxhall Gardens; that fail- 
ing to Ranelagh; that unaccountably failing too, it behooved him to 
present himself in Soho, and there declare his noble mind. 

Towards Soho, therefore, Mr. Stryver shouldered his way from the 
Temple, while the bloom of the Long Vacation’s infancy was still upon 
it. Anybody who had seen him projecting himself into Soho while he 
was yet on Saint Dunstan’s side of Temple Bar, bursting in his full- 
blown away along the pavement, to the jostlement of all weaker people, 
might have seen how safe and strong he was. 

His way taking him past Tellson’s, and he both banking at Tellson’s 
and knowing Mr. Lorry as the intimate friend of the Manettes, it 
entered Mr. Stryver’s mind to enter the bank, and reveal to Mr. Lorry 
the brightness of the Soho horizon. So, he pushed open the door with 

135 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


136 

the weak rattle in its throat, stumbled down the two steps, got past the 
two ancient cashiers, and shouldered himself into the musty back closet 
where Mr. Lorry sat at great books ruled for figures, with perpendicu- 
lar iron bars to his window as if that were ruled for figures too, and 
everything under the clouds were a sum. 

“ Halloa! ” said Mr. Stryver. “ How do you do? I hope you are 
well!” 

It was Stryver’s grand peculiarity that he always seemed too big for 
any place, or space. He was so much too big for Tellson’s, that old 
clerks in distant corners looked up with looks of remonstrance, as 
though he squeezed them against the wall. The House itself, mag- 
nificently reading the paper quite in the far-off perspective, lowered dis- 
pleased, as if the Stryver head had been butted into its responsible 
waistcoat. 

The discreet Mr. Lorry said, in a sample tone of the voice he would 
recommend under the circumstances, “How do you do, Mr. Stryver? 
How do you do, sir? ” and shook hands. There was a peculiarity in 
his manner of shaking hands, always to be seen in any clerk at Tellson’s 
who shook hands with a customer when the House pervaded the air. 
He shook in a self-abnegating way, as one who shook for Tellson and 
Co. 

“ Can I do anything for you, Mr. Stryver? ” asked Mr. Lorry, in his 
business character. 

“Why, no, thank you; this is a private visit to yourself, Mr. Lorry; 
I have come for a private word.” 

“ Oh, indeed! ” said Mr. Lorry, bending down his ear, while his eye 
strayed to the House afar off. 

“ I am going,” said Mr. Stryver, leaning his arms confidently on the 
desk, whereupon, although it was a large double one, there appeared 
to be not half desk enough for him, “ I am going to make an offer of 
myself in marriage to your agreeable little friend. Miss Manette, Mr. 
Lorry.” 

“ Oh dear me ! ” cried Mr. Lorry, rubbing his chin, and looking at his 
visitor dubiously. 

“ Oh dear me, sir? ” repeated Stryver, drawing back. “ Oh dear you, 
sir? What may your meaning be, Mr. Lorry? ” 

“ My meaning,” answered the man of business, “ is of course, friendly 
and appreciative, and that it does you the greatest credit, and — in 


THE FELLOW OF DELICACY 


137 


short, my meaning is everything you could desire. But — really, you 
know, Mr. Stryver — ” Mr. Lorry paused, and shook his head at him 
in the oddest manner, as if he were compelled against his will to add, 
internally, “you know there really is so much too much of you! ” 

“Well! ” said Stryver, slapping the desk with his contentious hand, 
opening his eyes wider, and taking a long breath, “ if I understand you, 
Mr. Lorry, I’ll be hanged! ” 

Mr. Lorry adjusted his little wig at both ears as a means towards 
that end, and bit the feather of a pen. 

“D — n it all, sir!” said Stryver, staring at him, “am I not eli- 
gible?” 

“Oh dear yes! Yes. Oh yes, you’re eligible!” said Mr. Lorry. 
“ If you say eligible, you are eligible.” 

“ Am I not prosperous? ” asked Stryver. 

“Oh! if you come to prosperous, you are prosperous,” said Mr. 
Lorry. 

“ And advancing? ” 

“ If you come to advancing, you know,” said Mr. Lorry, delighted to 
be able to make another admission, “ nobody can doubt that.” 

“Then what on earth is your meaning, Mr. Lorry?” demanded 
Stryver, perceptibly crestfallen. 

“Well! I — Were you going there now?” asked Mr. Lorry. 

“ Straight ! ” said Stryver, with a plump of his fist on the desk. 

“ Then I think I wouldn’t, if I was you.” 

“Why?” said Stryver. “Now, I’ll put you in a corner,” forensic- 
ally shaking a forefinger at him. “ You are a man of business and 
bound to have a reason. State your reason. Why wouldn’t you go? ” 

“ Because,” said Mr. Lorry, “ I wouldn’t go on such an object with- 
out having some cause to believe that I should succeed.” 

“ D — N ME ! ” cried Stryver, “ but this beats everything.” 

Mr. Lorry glanced at the distant House, and glanced at the angry 
Stryver. 

“ Here’s a man of business — a man of years — a man of experience 
— in a Bank,” said Stryver; “and having summed up three leading 
reasons for complete success, he says there’s no reason at all! Says 
it with his head on ! ” Mr. Stryver remarked upon the peculiarity as 
if it would have been infinitely less remarkable if he had said it with his 
head off. 


138 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“When I speak of success, I speak of success with the young lady; 
and when I speak of causes and reasons to make success probable, I 
speak of causes and reasons that will tell as such with the young lady. 
The young lady, my good sir,” said Mr. Lorry, mildly tapping the 
Stryver arm, “ the young lady. The young lady goes before all.” 

“ Then you mean to tell me, Mr. Lorry,” said Stryver, squaring his 
elbows, “ that it is your deliberate opinion that the young lady at pres- 
ent in question is a mincing Fool? ” 

“ Not exactly so. I mean to tell you, Mr. Stryver,” said Mr. Lorry, 
reddening, “ that I will hear no disrespectful word of that young lady 
from any lips; and that if I knew any man — which I hope I do not 
— whose taste was so coarse, and whose temper was so overbearing, 
that he could not restrain himself from speaking disrespectfully of that 
young lady at this desk, not even Tellson’s should prevent my giving 
him a piece of my mind.” 

The necessity of being angry in a suppressed tone had put Mr. 
Stryver’s blood-vessels into a dangerous state when it was his turn to be 
angry; Mr. Lorry’s veins, methodical as their courses could usually be, 
were in no better state now it was his turn. 

“ That is what I mean to tell you, sir,” said Mr. Lorry. “ Pray let 
there be no mistake about it.” 

Mr. Stryver sucked the end of a ruler for a little while, and then 
stood hitting a tune out of his teeth with it, which probably gave him 
the toothache. He broke the awkward silence by saying: 

“ This is something new to me, Mr. Lorry. You deliberately advise 
me not to go up to Soho and offer myself — myself, Stryver of the King’s 
Bench Bar? ” 

“ Do you ask me for my advice, Mr. Stryver? ” 

“ Yes, I do.” 

“ Very good. Then I give it, and you have repeated it correctly.” 

“ And all I can say of it is,” laughed Stryver with a vexed laugh, 
“ that this — ha, ha I — beats everything past, present, and to come.” 

“ Now understand me,” pursued Mr. Lorry. “ As a man of busi- 
ness, I am not justified in saying anything about this matter, for, as a 
man of business, I know nothing of it. But, as an old fellow, who has 
carried Miss Manette in his arms, who is the trusted friend of Miss 
Manette and of her father too, and who has a great affection for both. 


THE FELLOW OF DELICACY 


139 


I have spoken. The confidence is not of my seeking, recollect. Now, 
you think I may not be right? ” 

“ Not 1 1 ” said Stryver, whistling. “ I can’t undertake to find third 
parties in common sense ; I can only find it myself. I suppose sense in 
certain quarters; you suppose mincing bread-and-butter nonsense. It’s 
new to me, but you are right, I dare say.” 

” What I suppose, Mr. Stryver, I claim to characterize for myself. 
And understand me, sir,” said Mr. Lorry, quickly flushing again, “ I 
will not — not even at Tellson’s — have it characterized for me by any 
gentleman breathing.” 

“There! I beg your pardon! ” said Stryver. 

“Granted. Thank you. Well, Mr. Stryver, I was about to say: 
it might be painful to you to find yourself mistaken, it might be painful 
to Doctor Manette to have the task of being explicit with you, it might 
be very painful to Miss Manette to have the task of being explicit with 
you. You know the terms upon which I have the honor and happiness 
to stand with the family. If you please, committing you in no way, 
representing you in no way, I will undertake to correct my advice by 
the exercise of a little new observation and judgment expressly brought 
to bear upon it. If you should then be dissatisfied with it, you can but 
test its soundness for yourself; if, on the other hand, you should be satis- 
fied with it, and it should be what it now is, it may spare all sides what 
is best spared. What do you say? ” 

“ How long would you keep me in town? ” 

“ Oh ! It is only a question of a few hours. I could go to Soho in 
the evening, and come to your chambers afterwards.” 

“ Then I say yes,” said Stryver; “ I won’t go up there now, I am not 
so hot upon it as that comes to; I say yes, and I shall expect you to look 
in to-night. Good-morning.” 

Then Mr. Stryver turned and burst out of the Bank, causing such a 
concussion of air on his passage through, that to stand up against it 
bowing behind the two counters, required the utmost remaining strength 
of the two ancient clerks. Those venerable and feeble persons were al- 
ways seen by the public in the act of bowing, and were popularly be- 
lieved, when they had bowed a customer out, still to keep on bowing 
in the empty office until they bowed another customer in. 

The barrister was keen enough to divine that the banker would 


140 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


not have gone so far in his expression of opinion on any less solid 
ground than moral certainty. Unprepared as he was for the large pill 
he had to swallow, he got it down. “ And now,” said Mr. Stryver, 
shaking his forensic forefinger at the Temple in general, when it was 
down, “ my way out of this, is, to put you all in the wrong.” 

It was a bit of the art of an Old Bailey tactician, in which he found 
great relief. “ You shall not put me in the wrong, young lady,” said 
Mr. Stryver; “ I’ll do that for you.” 

Accordingly, when Mr. Lorry called that night as late as ten o’clock, 
Mr. Stryver, among a quantity of books and papers littered out for the 
purpose, seemed to have nothing less on his mind than the subject of 
the morning. He even showed surprise when he saw Mr. Lorry, and 
was altogether in an absent and preoccupied state. 

“Well! ” said that good-natured emissary, after a full half-hour of 
bootless attempts to bring him round to the question. “ I have been 
to Soho.” 

“To Soho?” repeated Mr. Stryver, coldly. “Oh, to be sure! 
What am I thinking of! ” 

“ And I have no doubt,” said Mr. Lorry, “ that I was right in the con- 
versation we had. My opinion is confirmed, and I reiterate my ad- 
vice.” 

“ I assure you,” returned Mr. Stryver, in the friendliest way, “ that 
I am sorry for it on your account, and sorry for it on the poor father’s 
account. I know this must always be a sore subject with the family; 
let us say no more about it.” 

“ I don’t understand you,” said Mr. Lorry. 

“ I dare say not,” rejoined Stryver, nodding his head in a smoothing 
and final way; “ no matter, no matter.” 

“ But it does matter,” Mr. Lorry urged. 

“ No, it doesn’t; I assure you it doesn’t. Having supposed that there 
was sense where there is no sense, and a laudable ambition where there 
is not a laudable ambition, I am well out of my mistake, and no harm 
is done. Young women have committed similar follies often before, 
and have repented them in poverty and obscurity often before. In an 
unselfish aspect, I am sorry that the thing is dropped, because it would 
have been a bad thing for me in a worldly point of view; in a selfish 
aspect, I am glad that the thing has dropped, because it would have 
been a bad thing for me in a worldly point of view — it is hardly neces- 


THE FELLOW OF DELICACY 


141 

sary to say I could have gained nothing by it. There Is no harm at all 
done. I have not proposed to the young lady, and, between ourselves, 
I am by no means certain, on reflection, that I ever should have com- 
mitted myself to that extent. Mr. Lorry, you cannot control the minc- 
ing vanities and giddiness of empty-headed girls; you must not expect to 
do it, or you will always be disappointed. Now, pray say no more 
about it. I tell you, I regret It on account of others, but I am satisfied 
on my own account. And I am really very much obliged to you for 
allowing me to sound you, and for giving me your advice; you know 
the young lady better than I do; you were right, it never would have 
done.’’ 

Mr. Lorry was so taken aback, that he looked quite stupidly at Mr. 
Stryver shouldering him towards the door, with an appearance of show- 
ering generosity, forbearance, and good-will, on his erring head. 
“ Make the best of it, my dear sir,” said Stryver; “ say no more about 
it; thank you again for allowing me to sound you; good-night! ” 

Mr. Lorry was out In the night, before he knew where he was. Mr. 
Stryver was lying back on his sofa, winking at his celling. 


CHAPTER XIII 


THE FELLOW OF NO DELICACY 

I F Sydney Carton ever shone anywhere, he certainly never shone in 
the house of Doctor Manette. He had been there often, during a 
whole year, and had always been the same moody and morose lounger 
there. When he cared to talk, he talked well; but, the cloud of caring 
for nothing, which overshadowed him with such a fatal darkness, was 
very rarely pierced by the light within him. 

And yet he did care something for the streets that environed that 
house, and for the senseless stones that made their pavements. Many 
a night he vaguely and unhappily wandered there, when wine had 
brought no transitory gladness to him; many a dreary daybreak re- 
vealed his solitary figure lingering there, and still lingering there when 
the first beams of the sun brought into strong relief, removed beauties 
of architecture in spires of churches and lofty buildings, as perhaps the 
quiet time brought some sense of better things, else forgotten and unat- 
tainable, into his mind. Of late, the neglected bed in the Temple Court 
had known him more scantily than ever; and often when he had thrown 
himself upon it no longer than a few minutes, he had got up again, 
and haunted that neighborhood. 

On a day in August, when Mr. Stryver (after notifying to his jackal 
that “ he had thought better of that marrying matter ” ) had carried 
his delicacy into Devonshire, and when the sight and scent of flowers 
in the City streets had some waifs of goodness in them for the worst, 
of health for the sickliest, and of youth for the oldest, Sydney’s feet still 
trod those stones. From being irresolute and purposeless, his feet be- 
came animated by an intention, and, in the working out of that intention, 
took him to the Doctor’s door. 

He was shown upstairs, and found Lucie at her work, alone. She 
had never been quite at her ease with him, and received him with some 
little embarrassment as he seated himself near her table. But, look- 

142 


THE FELLOW OF NO DELICACY 


143 


ing up at his face In the interchange of the first few commonplaces, she 
observed a change in it. 

“ I fear you are not well, Mr. Carton I ” 

“ No. But the life I lead, Miss Manette, is not conducive to health. 
What Is to be expected of, or by, such profligates? ” 

“ Is It not — forgive me; I have begun the question on my lips; — a 
pity to live no better life? ” 

“ God knows It Is a shame! ” 

“ Then why not change It? ” 

Looking gently at him again, she was surprised and saddened to see 
that there were tears in his eyes. There were tears in his voice too, as 
he answered: 

“ It Is too late for that. I shall never be better than I am. I shall 
sink lower, and be worse.” 

He leaned an elbow on her table, and covered his eyes with his 
hand. The table trembled in the silence that followed. 

She had never seen him softened, and was much distressed. He 
knew her to be so, without looking at her, and said: 

“ Pray forgive me. Miss Manette. I break down before the knowl- 
edge of what I want to say to you. Will you hear me? ” 

“ If it will do you any good, Mr. Carton, if it would make you hap- 
pier, it would make me very glad! ” 

“ God bless you for your sweet compassion ! ” 

He unshaded his face after a little while, and spoke steadily. 

“ Don’t be afraid to hear me. Don’t shrink from anything I say. 
I am like one who died young. All my life might have been.” 

” No, Mr. Carton. I am sure that the best part of it might still be; 
I am sure that you might be much, much worthier of yourself.” 

“ Say of you. Miss Manette, and although I know better — although 
in the mystery of my own wretched heart I know better — I shall never 
forget it ! ” 

She was pale and trembling. He came to her relief with a fixed 
despair of himself which made the interview unlike any other that could 
have been holden. 

“ If It had been possible. Miss Manette, that you could have returned 
the love of the man you see before you — self-flung away, wasted, 
drunken, poor creature of misuse as you know him to be — he would 
have been conscious this day and this hour, In spite of his happiness. 


144 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


that he would bring you to misery, bring you to sorrow and repentance, 
blight you, disgrace you, pull you down with him. I know very well 
that you can have no tenderness for me; I ask for none; I am even 
thankful that it cannot be.” 

“Without it, can I not save you, Mr. Carton? Can I not recall 
you — forgive me again ! — to a better course? Can I in no way repay 
your confidence? I know this is a confidence,” she modestly said, after 
a little hesitation, and in earnest tears, “ I know you would say this to no 
one else. Can I turn it to no good account for yourself, Mr. Carton? ” 

He shook his head. 

“ To none. None. No, Miss Manette, to none. If you will hear 
me through a very little more, all you can ever do for me is done. I 
wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul. In 
my degradation I have not been so degraded but that the sight of you 
with your father, and of this home made such a home by you, has 
stirred old shadows that I thought had died out of me. Since I knew 
you, I have been troubled by a remorse that I thought would never 
reproach me again, and have heard whispers from old voices impelling 
me upward, that I thought were silent for ever. I hav^e had unformed 
ideas of striving afresh, beginning anew, shaking off sloth and sen- 
suality, and fighting out the abandoned fight. A dream, all a dream, 
that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, but I 
wish you to know that you inspired it.” 

“Will nothing of it remain? O Mr. Carton, think again! Try 
again 1 ” 

“ No, Miss Manette; all through it, I have known myself to be quite 
undeserving. And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the 
weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled 
me, heaps of ashes that I am, into fire — a fire, however, inseparable in 
its nature from myself, quickening nothing, lighting nothing, doing no 
service, idly burning away.” 

“ Since it is my misfortune, Mr. Carton, to have made you more 
unhappy than you were before you knew me — ” 

“ Don’t say that, Miss Manette, for you would have reclaimed me, 
if anything could. You will not be the cause of my becoming worse.” 

“ Since the state of your mind that you described, is, at all events, 
attributable to some influence of mine — this is what I mean, if I can 


THE FELLOfV OF NO DELICACY 


145 

make it plain — can I use no influence to serve you? Have I no power 
for good, with you, at all? ” 

“ The utmost good that I am capable of now. Miss Manette, I have 
come here to realize. Let me carry through the rest of my misdirected 
life, the remembrance that I opened my heart to you, last of all the 
world; and that there was something left in me at this time which 
you could deplore and pity.” 

“ Which I entreated you to believe, again and again, most fervently, 
with all my heart, was capable of better things, Mr. Carton! ” 

“ Entreat me to believe it no more. Miss Manette. I have proved 
myself, and I know better. I distress you; I draw fast to an end. Will 
you let me believe, when I recall this day, that the last confidence of my 
life was reposed in your pure and innocent breast, and that it lies there 
alone, and will be shared by no one? ” 

“ If that will be a consolation to you, yes.” 

“ Not even by the dearest one ever to be known to you? ” 

“ Mr. Carton,” she answered, after an agitated pause, “ the secret 
is yours, not mine; and I promise to respect it.” 

“ Thank you. And again, God bless you.” 

He put her hand to his lips, and moved towards the door. 

“ Be under no apprehension. Miss Manette, of my ever resuming this 
conversation by so much as a passing word. I will never refer to it 
again. If I were dead, that could not be surer than it is henceforth. 
In the hour of my death, I shall hold sacred the one good remembrance 
— and shall thank and bless you for it — that my last avowal of myself 
was made to you, and that my name, and faults, and miseries were 
gently carried in your heart. May it otherwise be light and happy! 

He was so unlike what he had ever shown himself to be, and it was 
so sad to think how much he had thrown away, and how much he every 
day kept down and perverted, that Lucie Manette wept mournfully 
for him as he stood looking back at her. 

“ Be comforted! ” he said, “ I am not worth such feeling. Miss Man- 
ette. An hour or two hence, and the low companions and low habits 
that I scorn but yield to, will render me less worth such tears as those, 
than any wretch who creeps along the streets. Be comforted! But, 
within myself, I shall always be, towards you, what I am now, though 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


146 

outwardly I shall be what you have heretofore seen me. The last 
supplication but one I make to you, is, that you will believe this of me.” 

“ I will, Mr. Carton.” 

“ My last supplication of all, is this; and with it, I will relieve you 
of a visitor with whom I well know you have nothing in unison, and 
between whom and you there is an impassable space. It is useless to 
say it, I know, but it rises out of my soul. For you, and for any dear 
to you, I would do anything. If my career were of that better kind 
that there was any opportunity or capacity of sacrifice in it, I would 
embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you. Try to hold 
me in your mind, at some quiet times, as ardent and sincere in this one 
thing. The time will come, the time will not be long in coming, when 
new ties will be formed about you — ties that will bind you yet more 
tenderly and strongly to the home you so adorn — the dearest ties that 
will ever grace and gladden you. O Miss Manette, when the little 
picture of a happy father’s face looks up in yours, when you see your 
own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then 
that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love 
beside you I ” 

He said, “ Farewell I ” said a last “ God bless you! ” and left her. 


CHAPTER XIV 


THE HONEST TRADESMAN 

T O the eyes of Mr. Jeremiah Cruncher, sitting on his stool in Fleet 
Street with his grisly urchin beside him, a vast number and variety 
of objects in movement were every day presented. Who could sit upon 
anything in Fleet Street during the busy hours of the day, and not be 
dazed and deafened by two immense processions, one ever tending 
westward with the sun, the other ever tending eastward from the sun, 
both ever tending to the plains beyond the range of red and purple 
where the sun goes down! 

With his straw in his mouth, Mr. Cruncher sat watching the two 
streams, like the heathen rustic who has for several centuries been on 
duty watching one stream — saving that Jerry had no expectation of 
their ever running dry. Nor would it have been an expectation of a 
hopeful kind, since a small part of his income was derived from the 
pilotage of timid women (mostly of a full habit and past the middle 
term of life) from Tellson’s side of the tides to the opposite shore. 
Brief as such companionship was in every separate instance, Mr. 
Cruncher never failed to become so interested in the lady as to express 
a strong desire to have the honor of drinking her very good health. 
And it was from the gifts bestowed upon him towards the execution of 
this benevolent purpose, that he recruited his finances, as just now ob- 
served. 

Time was, when a poet sat upon a stool in a public place, and mused 
in the sight of men. Mr. Cruncher, sitting on a stool in a public place, 
but not being a poet, mused as little as possible, and looked about him. 

It fell out that he was thus engaged in a season when crowds were 
few, and belated women few, and when his affairs in general were so 
unprosperous as to awaken a strong suspicion in his breast that Mrs. 
Cruncher must have been “ flopping ” in some pointed manner, when an 
unusual concourse pouring down Fleet Street westward, attracted his 
attention. Looking that way, Mr. Cruncher made out that some kind 

147 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


148 

of funeral was coming along, and that there was popular objection to 
this funeral, which engendered uproar. 

“ Young Jerry,” said Mr. Cruncher, turning to his offspring, “ it’s a 
buryin’.” 

“ Hooroar, father!” cried Young Jerry. 

The young gentleman uttered this exultant sound with mysterious 
significance. The elder gentleman took the cry so ill, that he watched 
his opportunity, and smote the young gentleman on the ear. 

“ What d’ ye mean? What are you hooroaring at? What do you 
want to conwey to your own father, you young Rip? This boy is a 
getting too many for me! ” said Mr. Cruncher, surveying him. “ Him 
and his hooroars 1 Don’t let me hear no more of you, or you shall feel 
some more of me. D’ ye hear?” 

“ I warn’t doing no harm,” Young Jerry protested, rubbing his cheek. 

“ Drop it then,” said Mr. Cruncher; “ I won’t have none of your 
no harms. Get atop of that there seat, and look at the crowd.” 

His son obeyed, and the crowd approached; they were bawling and 
hissing round a dingy hearse and dingy mourning coach, in which mourn- 
ing coach there was only one mourner, dressed in the dingy trappings 
that were considered essential to the dignity of the position. The posi- 
tion appeared by no means to please him, however, with an increasing 
rabble surrounding the coach, deriding him, making grimaces at him, 
and incessantly groaning and calling out: “Yah! Spies! Tst! Yaha! 
Spies ! ” with many compliments too numerous and forcible to repeat. 

Funerals had at all times a remarkable attraction for Mr. Cruncher; 
he always pricked up his senses, and became excited, when a funeral 
passed Tellson’s. Naturally, therefore, a funeral with this uncommon 
attendance excited him greatly, and he asked of the first man who ran 
against him: 

“ What is it, brother? What’s it about? ” 

“ 7 don’t know,” said the man. “ Spies! Yaha! Tst! Spies! ” 

He asked another man. “ Who is it? ” 

“ 7 don’t know,” returned the man, clapping his hands to his mouth 
nevertheless, and vociferating in a surprising heat and with the greatest 
ardor, “ Spies! Yaha! Tst! tst! Spi-ies! ” 

At length, a person better informed on the merits of the case, tumbled 
against him, and from this person he learned that the funeral was the 
funeral of one Roger Cly. 


THE HONEST TRADESMAN 


149 


“ Was he a spy? ” asked Mr. Cruncher. 

“ Old Bailey spy,” returned his informant. “ Yaha! Tst! Yah! Old 
Bailey Spi-i-ies I ” 

“Why, to be sure!” exclaimed Jerry, recalling the Trial at which 
he had assisted. “ IVe seen him. Dead, is he? ” 

‘ Dead as mutton,” returned the other, “ and can’t be too dead. 
Have ’em out, there! Spies! Pull ’em out, there! Spies! ” 

The idea was so acceptable in the prevalent absence of any idea, that 
the crowd caught it up with eagerness, and loudly repeating the sug- 
gestion to have ’em out, and to pull ’em out, mobbed the two vehicles 
so closely that they came to a stop. On the crowd’s opening the coach 
doors, the one mourner scuffled out of himself and was in their hands 
for a moment; but he was so alert, and made such good use of his 
time, that in another moment he was scouring away up a by-street, after 
shedding his cloak, hat, long hatband, white pocket-handkerchief, and 
other symbolical tears. 

These, the people tore to pieces and scattered far and wide with great 
enjoyment, while the tradesmen hurriedly shut up their shops; for a 
crowd in those times stopped at nothing, and was a monster much 
dreaded. They had already got the length of opening the hearse to take 
the coffin out, when some brighter genius proposed instead, its being 
escorted to its destination amidst general rejoicing. Practical sugges- 
tions being much needed, this suggestion, too, was received with acclama- 
tion, and the coach was immediately filled with eight inside and a dozen 
out, while as many people got on the roof of the hearse as could by 
any exercise of ingenuity stick upon it. Among the first of these volun- 
teers was Jerry Cruncher himself, who modestly concealed his spiky 
head from the observation of Tellson’s, in the further corner of the 
mourning coach. 

The officiating undertakers made some protest against these changes 
in the ceremonies; but, the river being alarmingly near, and several 
voices remarking on the efficacy of cold immersion in bringing refrac- 
tory members of the profession to reason, the protest was faint and 
brief. The remodelled procession started, with a chimney-sweep driv- 
ing the hearse — advised by the regular driver, who was perched beside 
him, under close inspection, for the purpose — and with a pieman, also 
attended by his cabinet minister, driving the mourning coach. A bear- 
leader, a popular street character of the time, was impressed as an 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


150 

additional ornament, before the cavalcade had gone far down the Strand; 
and his bear, who was black and very mangy, gave quite an Undertaking 
air to that part of the procession in which he walked. 

Thus, with beer-drinking, pipe-smoking, song-roaring, and infinite 
caricaturing of woe, the disorderly procession went its way, recruiting 
at every step, and all the shops shutting up before it. Its destination 
was the old church of Saint Pancras, far off in the fields. It got there 
in course of time; insisted on pouring into the burial-ground; finally, 
accomplished the interment of the deceased Roger Cly in its own way, 
and highly to its own satisfaction. 

The dead man disposed of, and the crowd being under the necessity 
of providing some other entertainment for itself, another brighter genius 
(or perhaps the same) conceived the humor of impeaching casual passers- 
by, as Old Bailey spies, and wreaking vengeance on them. Chase was 
given to some scores of inoffensive persons who had never been near the 
Old Bailey in their lives, in the realization of this fancy, and they were 
roughly hustled and maltreated. The transition to the sport of window- 
breaking, and thence to the plundering of public-houses, was easy and 
natural. At last, after several hours, when sundry summer-houses had 
been pulled down, and some area-railings had been torn up, to arm the 
more belligerent spirits, a rumor got about that the Guards were com- 
ing. Before this rumor, the crowd gradually melted away, and per- 
haps the Guards came, and perhaps they never came, and this was the 
usual progress of a mob. 

Mr. Cruncher did not assist at the closing sports, but had remained 
behind in the churchyard, to confer and condole with the undertakers. 
The place had a soothing influence on him. He procured a pipe from 
a neighboring public-house, and smoked it, looking in at the railings and 
maturely considering the spot. 

“ Jerry,’’ said Mr. Cruncher, apostrophizing himself in his usual way, 
“ you see that there Cly that day, and you see with your own eyes 
that he was a young ’un and a straight made ’un.” 

Having smoked his pipe out, and ruminated a little longer, he turned 
himself about, that he might appear, before the hour of closing, on his 
station at Tellson’s. Whether his meditations on mortality had touched 
his liver, or whether his general health had been previously at all amiss, 
or whether he desired to show a little attention to an eminent man, is 


THE HONEST TRADESMAN 


151 

not so much to the purpose, as that he made a short call upon his 
medical adviser — a distinguished surgeon — on his way back. 

Young Jerry relieved his father with dutiful interest, and reported 
no job in his absence. The bank closed, the ancient clerks came out, 
the usual watch was set, and Mr. Cruncher and his son went home to 
tea. 

“ Now, I tell you where it is I ” said Mr. Cruncher to his wife, on 
entering. “ If, as a honest tradesman, my wenturs goes wrong to-night, 
I shall make sure that you’ve been praying again me, and I shall work 
you for it just the same as if I seen you do it.” 

The dejected Mrs. Cruncher shook her head. 

“ Why, you’re at it afore my face I ” said Mr. Cruncher, with signs 
of angry apprehension. 

“ I am saying nothing.” 

“Well, then; don’t meditate nothing. You might as well flop as 
meditate. You may as well go again me one way as another. Drop 
it altogether.” 

“ Yes, Jerry.” 

“Yes, Jerry,” repeated Mr. Cruncher, sitting down to tea. “Ah I 
It is yes, Jerry. That’s about it. You may say yes, Jerry.” 

Mr. Cruncher had no particular meaning in these sulky corroborations, 
but made use of them, as people not unfrequently do, to express general 
ironical dissatisfaction. 

“ You and your yes, Jerry,” said Mr. Cruncher, taking a bite out of 
his bread-and-butter, and seeming to help it down with a large invisible 
oyster out of his saucer. “ Ah I I think so. I believe you.” 

“ You are going out to-night? ” asked the decent wife, when he took 
another bite. 

“ Yes, I am.” 

“ May I go with you, father? ” asked his son, briskly. 

“No, you mayn’t. I’m a going — as your mother knows — a fish- 
ing. That’s where I’m going to. Going a fishing.” 

“ Your fishing-rod gets rayther rusty; don’t it, father? ” 

“ Never you mind.” 

“Shall you bring any fish home, father?” 

“ If I don’t you’ll have short commons, to-morrow,” returned that 
gentleman, shaking his head; “ that’s questions enough for you; I ain’t 
a-going out, till you’ve been long abed.” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


152 

He devoted himself during the remainder of the evening to keeping 
a most vigilant watch on Mrs. Cruncher, and suddenly holding her in 
conversation that she might be prevented from meditating any petitions 
to his disadvantage. With this view, he urged his son to hold her in 
conversation also, and led the unfortunate woman a hard life by dwell- 
ing on any causes of complaint he could bring against her, rather than 
he would leave her for a moment to her own reflections. The devoutest 
person could have rendered no greater homage to the efficacy of an 
honest prayer than he did in this distrust of his wife. It was as if a 
professed unbeliever in ghosts should be frightened by a ghost story. 

“ And mind you 1 ” said Mr. Cruncher. “ No games to-morrow ! If 
I, as an honest-tradesman, succeed in providing a jinte of meat or two, 
none of your not touching of it, and sticking to bread. If I, as a honest 
tradesman, am able to provide a little beer, none of your declaring on 
water. When you go to Rome, do as Rome does. Rome will be a 
ugly customer to you, if you don’t. Fm your Rome, you know.” 

Then he began grumbling again : 

“With your flying into the face of your own wittles and drink! I 
don’t know how scarce you mayn’t make the wittles and drink here, by 
your flopping tricks and your unfeeling conduct. Look at your boy; 
he is your’n, ain’t he? He’s as thin as a lath. Do you call yourself a 
mother, and not know that a mother’s first duty is to blow her boy 
out?” 

This touched Young Jerry on a tender place; who adjured his mother 
to perform her first duty, and, whatever else she did or neglected, above 
all things to lay especial stress on the discharge of that maternal func- 
tion so affectingly and delicately indicated by his other parent. 

Thus the evening wore away with the Cruncher family, until young 
Jerry was ordered to bed, and his mother, laid under similar injunctions, 
obeyed them. Mr. Cruncher beguiled the earlier watches of the night 
with solitary pipes, and did not start upon his excursion until nearly 
one o’clock. Towards that small and ghostly hour, he rose up from 
his chair, took a key out of his pocket, opened a locked cupboard, and 
brought forth a sack, a crow-bar of convenient size, a rope and chain, 
and other fishing tackle of that nature. Disposing these articles about 
him in skillful manner, he bestowed a parting defiance on Mrs. Cruncher, 
extinguished the light, and went out. 

Young Jerry, who had only made a feint of undressing when he went 




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THE HONEST TRADESMAN 153 

to bed, was not long after his father. Under cover of the darkness he 
followed out of the room, followed down the stairs, followed down the 
court, followed out into the streets. He was in no uneasiness concern- 
ing his getting into the house again, for it was full of lodgers, and the 
door stood ajar all night. 

Impelled by a laudable ambition to study the art and mystery of his 
father s honest calling. Young Jerry, keeping as close to house fronts, 
walls, and doorways, as his eyes were close to one another, held his 
honored parent in view. The honored parent steering Northward, had 
not gone far, when he was joined by another disciple of Izaak Walton, 
and the two trudged on together. 

Within half an hour from the first starting, they were beyond the 
winking lamps, and the more than winking watchmen, and were out 
upon a lonely road. Another fisherman was picked up here — and that 
so silently, that if Young Jerry had been superstitious, he might have 
supposed the second follower of the gentle craft to have, all of a sudden, 
split himself into two. 

The three went on, and Young Jerry went on, until the three stopped 
under a bank overhanging the road. Upon the top of the bank was a 
low brick wall, surmounted by an iron railing. In the shadow of bank 
and wall the three turned out of the road, and up a blind lane, of which 
the wall — there, risen to some eight or ten feet high — formed one 
side. Crouching down in a corner, peeping up the lane, the next object 
that Young Jerry saw, was the form of his honored parent, pretty well 
defined against a watery and clouded moon, nimbly scaling an iron gate. 
He was soon over, and then the second fisherman got over, and then 
the third. They all dropped softly on the ground within the gate, and 
lay there a little — listening perhaps. Then, they moved away on their 
hands and knees. 

It was now Young Jerry’s turn to approach the gate: which he did, 
holding his breath. Crouching down again in a corner there, and look- 
ing in, he made out the three fishermen creeping through some rank 
grass ! and all the gravestones in the churchyard — it was a large church- 
yard that they were in — looking on like ghosts in white, while the 
church tower itself looked on like the ghost of a monstrous giant. They 
did not creep far, before they stopped and stood upright. And then 
they began to> fish. 

They fished’ with a spade, at first. Presently the honored parent ap- 


154 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


peared to be adjusting some instrument like a great corkscrew. What- 
ever tools they worked with, they worked hard, until the awful striking 
of the church clock so terrified Young Jerry, that he made off, with his 
hair as stiff as his father’s. 

But, his long-cherished desire to know more about these matters, not 
only stopped him in his running away, but lured him back again. They 
were still fishing perseveringly, when he peeped in at the gate for the 
second time; but, now they seemed to have got a bite. There was a 
screwing and complaining sound down below, and their bent figures were 
strained, as if by a weight. By slow degrees the weight broke away the 
earth upon it, and came to the surface. Young Jerry very well knew 
what it would be; but, when he saw it, and saw his honored parent 
about to wrench it open, he was so frightened, being new to the sight, 
that he made off again, and never stopped until he had run a mile or 
more. 

He would not have stopped then, for anything less necessary than 
breath, it being a spectral sort of race that he ran, and one highly desir- 
able to get to the end of. He had a strong idea that the coffin he had 
seen was running after him; and, pictured as hopping on behind him, 
bolt upright, upon its narrow end, always on the point of overtaking 
him and hopping on at his side — perhaps taking his arm — it was a 
pursuer to shun. It was an inconsistent and ubiquitous fiend too, for, 
while it was making the whole night behind him dreadful, he darted 
out into the roadway to avoid dark alleys, fearful of its coming hopping 
out of them like a dropsical boy’s kite without tail and wings. It hid 
in doorways too, rubbing its horrible shoulders against doors, and draw- 
ing them up to its ears, as if it were laughing. It got into shadows on 
the road, and lay cunningly on its back to trip him up. All this time 
it was incessantly hopping on behind and gaining on him, so that when 
the boy got to his own door he had reason for being half dead. And 
even then it would not leave him, but followed him upstairs with a 
bump on every stair, scrambled into bed with him, and bumped down, 
dead and heavy, on his breast when he fell asleep. 

From his oppressed slumber. Young Jerry in his closet was awak- 
ened after daybreak and before sunrise, by the presence of his father 
in the family room. Something had gone wrong with him; at least, so 
Young Jerry inferred, from the circumstance of his holding Mrs. 


THE HONEST TRADESMAN 


155 

Cruncher by the ears, and knocking the back of her head against the 
headboard of the bed. 

‘‘ I told you I would,” said Mr. Cruncher, “ and I did.” 

“ Jerry, Jerry, Jerry! ” his wife implored. 

” You oppose yourself to the profit of the business,” said Jerry, “ and 
me and my partners suffer. You was to honor and obey; why the devil 
don’t you? ” 

” I try to be a good wife, Jerry,” the poor woman protested, with 
tears. 

” Is it being a good wife to oppose your husband’s business? Is it 
honoring your husband to dishonor his business? Is it obeying your 
husband to disobey him on the vital subject of his business? ” 

“ You hadn’t taken to the dreadful business then, Jerry.” 

“ It’s enough for you,” retorted Mr. Cruncher, “ to be the wife of a 
honest tradesman, and not to occupy your female mind with calculations 
when he took to his trade or when he didn’t. A honoring and obeying 
wife would let his trade alone altogether. Call yourself a religious 
woman? If you’re a religious woman, give me a irreligious one! You 
have no more nat’ral sense of duty than the bed of this here Thames 
river has of a pile, and similarly it must be knocked into you.” 

The altercation was conducted in a low tone of voice, and terminated 
in the honest tradesman’s kicking off his clay-soiled boots, and lying 
down at his length on the floor. After taking a timid peep at him lying 
on his back, with his rusty hands under his head for a pillow, his son 
lay down too, and fell asleep again. 

There was no fish for breakfast, and not much of anything else. 
Mr. Cruncher was out of spirits, and out of temper, and kept an iron 
pot-lid by him as a projectile for the correction of Mrs. Cruncher, in 
case he should observe any symptoms of her saying Grace. He was 
brushed and washed at the usual hour, and set off with his son to pursue 
his ostensible calling. 

Young Jerry, walking with the stool under his arm at his father’s 
side along sunny and crowded Fleet Street, was a very different Young 
Jerry from him of the previous night, running home through darkness 
and solitude from his grim pursuer. His cunning was fresh with the 
day, and his qualms were gone with the night — in which particulars it 
is not improbable that he had compeers in Fleet Street and the City of 
London, that fine morning. 


156 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“Father,” said Young Jerry, as they walked along: taking care to 
keep at arm’s length and to have the stool well between them : “ what’s 
a Resurrection-Man?” 

Mr. Cruncher came to a stop on the pavement before he answered, 
“ How should I know? ” 

“ I thought you knowed everything, father,” said the artless boy. 

“ Hem I Well,” returned Mr. Cruncher, going on again, and lifting 
off his hat to give his spikes free play, “ he’s a tradesman.” 

“ What’s his goods, father? ” asked the brisk Young Jerry. 

“ His goods,” said Mr. Cruncher, after turning it over in his mind, 
“ is a branch of Scientific goods.” 

“ Persons’ bodies, ain’t it, father? ” asked the lively boy. 

“ I believe it is something of that sort,” said Mr. Cruncher. 

“ Oh, father, I should so like to be a Resurrection-Man when I’m 
quite growed up ! ” 

Mr. Cruncher was soothed, but shook his head in a dubious and moral 
way. “ It depends upon how you dewelop your talents. Be careful 
to dewelop your talents, and never to say no more than you can help 
to nobody, and there’s no telling at the present time what you may not 
come to be fit for.” As Young Jerry, thus encouraged, went on a few 
yards in advance, to plant the stool in the shadow of the Bar, Mr. 
Cruncher added to himself : “ Jerry, you honest tradesman, there’s hopes 
wot that boy will yet be a blessing to you, and a recompense to you for 
his mother I ” 


CHAPTER XV 


KNITTING 

T here had been earlier drinking than usual in the wine-shop of 
Monsieur Defarge. As early as six o’clock in the morning, sallow 
faces peeping through its barred windows had descried other faces 
within, bending over measures of wine. Monsieur Defarge sold a very 
thin wine at the best of times, but it would seem to have been an unus- 
ually thin wine that he sold at this time. A sour wine, moreover, or a 
souring, for its influence on the mood of those who drank it was to make 
them gloomy. No vivacious Bacchanalian flame leaped out of the 
pressed grape of Monsieur Defarge; but, a smouldering fire that burnt 
in the dark, lay hidden in the dregs of it. 

This had been the third morning in succession, on which there had 
been early drinking at the wine-shop of Monsieur Defarge. It had 
begun on Monday, and here was Wednesday come. There had been 
more of early brooding than drinking; for, many men had listened and 
whispered and slunk about there from the time of the opening of the 
door, who could not have laid a piece of money on the counter to save 
their souls. These were to the full as interested in the place, how- 
ever, as if they could have commanded whole barrels of wine; and they 
glided from seat to seat, and from corner to corner, swallowing talk in 
lieu of drink, with greedy looks. 

Notwithstanding an unusual flow of company, the master of the 
wine-shop was not visible. He was not missed ; for, nobody who crossed 
the threshold looked for him, nobody asked for him, nobody wondered 
to see only Madame Defarge in her seat, presiding over the distribu- 
tion of wine, with a bowl of battered small coins before her, as much 
defaced and beaten out of their original impress as the small coinage of 
humanity from whose ragged pockets they had come. 

A suspended interest and a prevalent absence of mind, were perhaps 
observed by the spies who looked in at the wine-shop, as they looked 
in at every place, high and low, from the king’s palace to the criminal’s 

157 


158 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


gaol. Games at cards languished, players at dominoes musingly built 
towers with them, drinkers drew figures on the tables with spilt drops 
of wine, Madame Defarge herself picked out the pattern on her sleeve 
with her toothpick, and saw and heard something inaudible and invisible 
a long way off. 

Thus, Saint Antoine in this vinous feature of him, until midday. It 
was high noontide, when two dusty men passed through his streets and 
under his swinging lamps; of whom, one was Monsieur Defarge; the 
other a mender of roads in a blue cap. All adust and athirst, the two 
entered the wine-shop. Their arrival had lighted a kind of fire in the 
breast of Saint Antoine, fast spreading as they came along, which stirred 
and flickered in flames of faces at most doors and windows. Yet, no 
one had followed them, and no man spoke when they entered the wine- 
shop, though the eyes of every man there were turned upon them. 

“ Good-day, gentlemen! ” said Monsieur Defarge. 

It may have been a signal for loosening the general tongue. It 
elicited an answering chorus of “ Good-day! ” 

“ It is bad weather, gentlemen,” said Defarge, shaking his head. 

Upon which, every man looked at his neighbor, and then all cast 
down their eyes and sat silent. Except one man, who got up and went 
out. 

“ My wife,” said Defarge aloud, addressing Madame Defarge; “I 
have traveled certain leagues with this good mender of roads, called 
Jacques. I met him — by accident — a day and a half’s journey out of 
Paris. He is a good child, this mender of roads, called Jacques. Give 
him to drink, my wife ! ” 

A second man got up and went out. Madame Defarge set wine 
before the mender of roads called Jacques, who doffed his blue cap to 
the company, and drank. In the breast of his blouse he carried some 
coarse dark bread; he ate of this between whiles, and sat munching and 
drinking near Madame Defarge’s counter. A third man got up and 
went out. 

Defarge refreshed himself with a draught of wine — but, he took 
less than was given to the stranger, as being himself a man to whom it 
was no rarity — and stood waiting until the countryman had made his 
breakfast. He looked at no one present, and no one now looked at 
him; not even Madame Defarge, who had taken up her knitting, and 
was at work. 


KNITTING 159 

“ Have you finished your repast, friend? ” he asked, in due season. 

“ Yes, thank you.” 

“Come, then! You shall see the apartment that I told you you 
could occupy. It will suit you to a marvel.” 

Out of the wine-shop into the street, out of the street into a court- 
yard, out of the court-yard up a steep staircase, out of the staircase into 
a garret — formerly the garret where a white-haired man sat on a low 
bench, stooping forward and very busy, making shoes. 

No white-haired man was there now; but, the three men were there 
who had gone out of the wine-shop singly. And between them and the 
white-haired man afar off, was the one small link, that they had once 
looked in at him through the chinks in the wall. 

Defarge closed the door carefully, and spoke in a subdued voice: 

“Jacques One, Jacques Two, Jacques Three! This is the witness 
encountered by appointment, by me, Jacques Four. He will tell you all. 
Speak, Jacques Five! ” 

The mender of roads, blue cap in hand, wiped his swarthy forehead 
with it, and said, “Where shall I commence, monsieur?” 

“ Commence,” was Monsieur Defarge’s not unreasonable reply, “ at 
the commencement.” 

“ I saw him then, messieurs,” began the mender of roads, “ a year 
ago this running summer, underneath the carriage of the Marquis, hang- 
ing by the chain. Behold the manner of it. I leaving my work on the 
road, the sun going to bed, the carriage of the Marquis slowly ascend- 
ing the hill, he hanging by the chain — like this.” 

Again the mender of roads went through, the whole performance; in 
which he ought to have been perfect by that time, seeing that it had 
been the infallible resource and indispensable entertainment of his vil- 
lage during a whole year. 

Jacques One struck in, and asked if he had ever seen the man before? 

“ Never,” answered the mender of roads, recovering his perpendic- 
ular. 

Jacques Three demanded how he afterwards recognized him then? 

“ By his tall figure,” said the mender of roads, softly, and with his 
finger at his nose. “ When Monsieur the Marquis demands that even- 
ing, ‘ Say, what is he like? ’ I make response, ‘ Tall as a spectre.’ ” 

“ You should have said, short as a dwarf,” returned Jacques Two. 

“ But what did I know? The deed was not then accomplished, neither 


i6o 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


did he confide in me. Observe ! Under those circumstances even, I do 
not offer my testimony. Monsieur the Marquis indicates me with his 
finger, standing near our little fountain, and says, ‘To me! Bring 
that rascal ! ’ My faith, messieurs, I offer nothing.” 

“ He is right there, Jacques,” murmured Defarge, to him who had 
interrupted. “ Go on ! ” 

“ Good I ” said the mender of roads, with an air of mystery. “ The 
tall man is lost, and he is sought ^ — how many months? Nine, ten, 
eleven? ” 

“ No matter, the number,” said Defarge. “ He is well hidden, but 
at last he is unluckily found. Go on ! ” 

“ I am again at work upon the hill-side, and the sun is again about 
to go to bed. I am collecting my tools to descend to my cottage down 
in the village below, where it is already dark, when I raise my eyes, 
and see coming over the hill six soldiers. In the midst of them is a 
tall man with his arms bound — tied to his sides — like this! ” 

With the aid of his indispensable cap, he represented a man with 
his elbows bound fast at his hips, with cords that were knotted behind 
him. 

“ I stand aside, messieurs, by my heap of stones, to see the soldiers 
and their prisoner pass (for it is a solitary road, that, where any spec- 
tacle is well worth looking at), and at first, as they approach, I see no 
more than that they are six soldiers with a tall man bound, and that 
they are almost black to my sight — except on the side of the sun going 
to bed, where they have a red edge, messieurs. Also, I see that their 
long shadows are on the hollow ridge on the opposite side of the road, 
and are on the hill above it, and are like the shadows of giants. Also, 
I see that they are covered with dust, and that the dust moves with 
them as they come, tramp, tramp 1 But when they advance quite near 
to me, I recognize the tall man, and he recognizes me. Ah, but he 
would be well content to precipitate himself over the hillside once again, 
as on the evening when he and I first encountered, close to the same 
spot!” 

He described it as if he were there, and it was evident that he saw 
it vividly; perhaps he had not seen much in his life. 

“ I do not show the soldiers that I recognize the tall man; he does not 
show the soldiers that he recognizes me; we do it, and we know it, with 
our eyes. ‘ Come on ! ’ says the chief of that company, pointing to 


KNITTING 


i6i 


the village, ‘ bring him fast to his tomb ! ’ and they bring him faster. 
I follow. His arms are swelled because of being bound so tight, his 
wooden shoes are large and clumsy, and he is lame. Because he is lame, 
and consequently slow, they drive him with their guns — like this! ” 

He imitated the action of a man’s being impelled forward by the 
butt-ends of muskets. 

“ As they descend the hill like madmen running a race, he falls. They 
laugh and pick him up again. His face is bleeding and covered with 
dust, but he cannot touch it; thereupon they laugh again. They bring 
him into the village; all the village runs to look; they take him past 
the mill, and up to the prison; all the village sees the prison gate 
open in the darkness of the night, and swallow him — like this I ” 

He opened his mouth as wide as he could, and shut it with a sounding 
snap of his teeth. Observant of his unwillingness to mar the effect 
by opening it again, Defarge said, “ Go on, Jacques.” 

“ All the village,” pursued the mender of roads, oh tiptoe and in a 
low voice, “withdraws; all the village whispers by the fountain; all 
the village sleeps; all the village dreams of that unhappy one, within 
the locks and bars of the prison on the crag, and never to come out of 
it, except to perish. In the morning, with my tools upon my shoulder, 
eating my morsel of black bread as I go, I make a circuit by the prison, 
on my way to my work. There I see him, high up, behind the bars 
of a lofty iron cage, bloody and dusty as last night, looking through. 
He has no hand free, to wave to me; I dare not call to him; he regards 
me like a dead man.” 

Defarge and the three glanced darkly at one another. The looks of 
all of them were dark, repressed, and revengeful, as they listened to the 
countryman’s story; the manner of all of them, while it was secret, 
was authoritative too. They had the air of a rough tribunal; Jacques 
One and Two sitting on the old pallet-bed, each with his chin resting 
on his hand, and his eyes intent on the road-mender; Jacques Three, 
equally intent, on one knee behind them, with his agitated hand always 
gliding over the network of fine nerves about his mouth and nose; 
Defarge standing between them and the narrator, whom he had sta- 
tioned in the light of the window, by turns looking from him to them, 
and from them to him. 

“ Go on, Jacques,” said Defarge. 

“ He remains up there in his iron cage some days. The village 


i 62 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


looks at him by stealth, for it is afraid. But it always looks up, from 
a distance, at the prison on the crag; and in the evening, when the 
work of the day is achieved and it assembles to gossip at the fountain, 
all faces are turned towards the prison. Formerly, they were turned 
towards the posting-house; now, they are turned towards the prison. 
They whisper at the fountain, that although condemned to death he will 
not be executed; they say that petitions have been present^ in Paris, 
showing that he was enraged and made mad by the death of his child; 
they say that a petition has been presented to the King himself. What 
do I know? It is possible. Perhaps yes, perhaps no.” 

“ Listen then, Jacques,” Number One of that name sternly inter- 
posed. ” Know that a petition was presented to the King and Queen. 
All here, yourself excepted, saw the King take it, in his carriage in the 
street, sitting beside the Queen. It is Defarge whom you see here, who, 
at the hazard of his life, darted out before the horses, with the petition 
in his hand.” 

“And once again listen, Jacques! ” said the kneeling Number Three, 
his fingers ever wandering over and over those fine nerves with a 
strikingly greedy air, as if he hungered for something that was neither 
food nor drink, “ the guard, horse and foot, surrounded the petitioner, 
and struck him blows. You hear?” 

“ I hear, messieurs.” 

“ Go on then,” said Defarge. 

“Again; on the other hand, they whisper at the fountain,” resumed 
the countryman, “ that he is brought down into our country to be exe- 
cuted on the spot, and that he will very certainly be executed. They 
even whisper that because he has slain Monseigneur, and because Mon- 
seigneur was the father of his tenants — serfs — what you will — he 
will be executed as a parricide. One old man says at the fountain, that 
his right hand, armed with the knife, will be burnt off before his face; 
that, into wounds which will be made in his arms, his breast, and his 
legs, there will be poured boiling oil, melted lead, hot resin, wax, and 
sulphur; finally, that he will be torn limb from limb by four strong 
horses. That old man says, all this was actually done to a prisoner 
who made an attempt on the life of the late King, Louis Fifteenth. But 
how do I know if he lies? I am not a scholar.” 

“Listen once again then, Jacques!” said the man with the restless 
hand and the craving air. “ The name of that prisoner was Damiens, 


KNITTING 


163 

and it was all done in open day, In the open streets of this city of 
Paris; and nothing was more noticed in the vast concourse that saw 
it done, than the crowd of ladles of quality and fashion, who were full 
of eager attention to the last — ^ to the last, Jacques, prolonged until 
nightfall, when he had lost two legs and an arm, and still breathed!. 
And It was done — why, how old are you? ” 

“ Thirty-five,” said the mender of roads, who looked sixty. 

“ It was done when you were more than ten years old; you might 
have seen It.” 

“ Enough 1 ” said Defarge, with grim Impatience. “ Long live the 
Devil! Go on.” 

“Well! Some whisper this, some whisper that; they speak of noth- 
ing else ; even the fountain appears to fall to that tune. At length, on 
Sunday night when all the village Is asleep, come soldiers, winding down 
from the prison, and their guns ring on the stone of the little street. 
Workmen dig, workmen hammer, soldiers laugh and sing; In the morn- 
ing, by the fountain, there is raised a gallows forty feet high, poisoning 
the water.” 

The mender of roads looked through rather than at the low ceiling, 
and pointed as If he saw the gallows somewhere In the sky. 

“ All work is stopped, all assemble there, nobody leads the cows out, 
the cows are there with the rest. At midday, the roll of drums. Sol- 
diers have marched into the prison in the night, and he is in the midst 
of many soldiers. He is bound as before, and In his mouth there Is a 
gag — tied so, with a tight string, making him look almost as if he 
laughed.” He suggested It, by creasing his face with his two thumbs, 
from the corners of his mouth to his ears. “ On the top of the gallows 
is fixed the knife, blade upwards, with its point In the air. He is hanged 
there forty feet high — and is left hanging, poisoning the water.” 

They look at one another, as he used his blue cap to wipe his face, 
on which the perspiration had started afresh while he recalled the spec- 
tacle. 

“ It Is frightful, messieurs. How can the women and the children 
draw water! Who can gossip of an evening, under that shadow! 
Under it, have I said? When I left the village, Monday evening as 
the sun was going to bed, and looked back from the hill, the shadow 
struck across the church, across the mill, across the prison — seemed to 
strike across the earth, messieurs, to where the sky rests upon It ! ” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


164 

The hungry man gnawed one of his fingers as he looked at the other 
three, and his finger quivered with the craving that was on him. 

“That’s all, messieurs. I left at sunset (as I had been warned to 
do,) and I walked on, that night and half next day, until I met (as I 
was warned I should) this comrade. With him, I came on, now rid- 
ing and now walking, through the rest of yesterday and through last 
night. And here you see me ! ” 

After a gloomy silence, the first Jacques said, “Good! You have 
acted and recounted faithfully. Will you wait for us a little, outside 
the door? ” 

“ Very willingly,” said the mender of roads. Whom Defarge 
escorted to the top of the stairs, and, leaving seated there, returned. 

The three had risen, and their heads were together when he came 
back to the garret. 

“ How say you, Jacques? ” demanded Number One. “ To be regis- 
tered?” 

“ To be registered, as doomed to destruction,” returned Defarge. 

“ Magnificent I ” croaked the man with the craving. 

“ The chateau and all the race? ” inquired the first. 

“ The chateau and all the race,” returned Defarge. “ Extermina- 
tion.” 

The hungry man repeated, in a rapturous croak, “ Magnificent 1 ” 
and began gnawing another finger. 

“ Are you sure,” asked Jacques Two, of Defarge, “ that no embar- 
rassment can arise from our manner of keeping the register? Without 
doubt it is safe, for no one beyond ourselves can decipher it; but shall 
we always be able to decipher it — or, I ought to say, will she? ” 

“ Jacques,” returned Defarge, drawing himself up, “ if madame my 
wife undertook to keep the register in her memory alone, she would not 
lose a word of it — not a syllable of it. Knitted, in her own stitches 
and her own symbols, it will always be as plain to her as the sun. Con- 
fide in Madame Defarge. It would be easier for the weakest poltroon 
that lives, to erase himself from existence, than to erase one letter 
of his name or crimes from the knitted register of Madame Defarge.” 

There was a murmur of confidence and approval, and then the man 
who hungered, asked: “Is this rustic to be sent back soon? I hope 
so. He is very simple; is he not a little dangerous? ” 

“He knows nothing,” said Defarge; “at least nothing more than 


KNITTING 


165 

would easily elevate himself to a gallows of the same height. I charge 
myself with him; let him remain with me; I will take care of him, and 
set him on his road. He wishes to see the fine world — the King, the 
Queen, and Court; let him see them on Sunday.” 

“ What? ” exclaimed the hungry man, staring. “ Is it a good sign, 
that he wishes to see Royalty and Nobility? ” 

“ Jacques,” said Defarge; “judiciously show a cat milk, if you wish 
her to thirst for it. Judiciously show a dog his natural prey, if you 
wish him to bring it down one day.” 

Nothing more was said, and the mender of roads, being found already 
dozing on the topmost stair, was advised to lay himself down on the 
pallet-bed and take some rest. He needed no persuasion, and was 
soon asleep. 

Worse quarters than Defarge’s wine-shop, could easily have been 
found in Paris for a provincial slave of that degree. Saving for a 
mysterious dread of madame, by which he was constantly haunted, his 
life w^as very new and agreeable. But, madame sat all day at her 
counter, so expressly unconscious of him, and so particularly determined 
not to perceive that his being there had any connection with any- 
thing below the surface, that he shook in his wooden shoes when- 
ever his eye lighted on her. For, he contended with himself that it 
was impossible to foresee what that lady might pretend next; and he felt 
assured that if she should take it into her brightly ornamented head to 
pretend that she had seen him do a murder and afterwards flay the 
victim, she would infallibly go through with it until the play was played 
out. 

Therefore, when Sunday came, the mender of roads was not en- 
chanted (though he said he was) to find that madame was to accom- 
pany monsieur and himself to Versailles. It was additionally discon- 
certing to have madame knitting all the way there, in a public convey- 
ance; it was additionally disconcerting yet, to have madame in the crowd 
in the afternoon, still with her knitting in her hands as the crowd waited 
to see the carriage of the King and Queen. 

“ You work hard, madame,” said a man near her. 

“ Yes,” answered Madame Defarge; “ I have a good deal to do.” 

“ What do you make, madame? ” 

“ Many things.” 

“ For instance — ” 


i66 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ For instance,” returned Madame Defarge, composedly, “ shrouds.” 

The man moved a little further away, as soon as he could, and the 
mender of roads fanned himself with his blue cap feeling it mightily 
close and oppressive. If he needed a King and Queen to restore him, 
he was fortunate in having his remedy at hand; for, soon the large-faced 
King and the fair-faced Queen came in their golden coach, attended by 
the shining Bull’s Eye of their Court, a glittering multitude of laughing 
ladies and fine lords; and in jewels and silks and powder and splendor 
and elegantly spurning figures and handsomely disdainful faces of both 
sexes, the mender of roads bathed himself, so much to his temporary 
intoxication, that he cried Long live the King, Long live the Queen, 
Long live everybody and everything, as if he had never heard of ubiqui- 
tous Jacques in his time. Then, there were gardens, court-yards, ter- 
races, fountains, green banks, more King and Queen, more Bull’s Eye, 
more lords and ladies, more Long live they all until he absolutely 
wept with sentiment. During the whole of this scene, which lasted some 
three hours, he had plenty of shouting and weeping and sentimental 
company, and throughout Defarge held him by the collar, as if to restrain 
him from flying at the objects of his brief devotion and tearing them 
to pieces. 

” Bravo! ” said Defarge, clapping him on the back when it was over, 
like a patron; ” you are a good boy! ” 

The mender of roads was now coming to himself, and was mistrust- 
ful of having made a mistake in his late demonstrations; but no. 

“ You are the fellow we want,” said Defarge, in his ear; “ you make 
these fools believe that it will last for ever. Then, they are the more 
insolent, and it is the nearer ended.’* 

” Hey! ” cried the mender of roads, reflectively; “ that’s true.” 

“ These fools know nothing. While they despise your breath, and 
would stop it for ever and ever, in you or in a hundred like you rather 
than in one of their own horses or dogs, they only know what your 
breath tells them. Let it deceive them, then, a little longer; it cannot 
deceive them too much.” 

Madame Defarge looked superciliously at the client, and nodded in 
confirmation. 

” As to you,” said she, “ you would shout and shed tears for any- 
thing, if it made a show and a noise. Say! Would you not? ” 

“ Truly, madame, I think so. For the moment.” 


KNITTING 


167 

“ If you were shown a great heap of dolls, and were set upon them 
to pluck them to pieces and despoil them for your own advantage, you 
would pick out the richest and gayest. Say! Would you not?” 

“ Truly yes, madame.” 

“Yes. And if you were shown a flock of birds, unable to fly, and 
were set upon them to strip them of their feathers for your own ad- 
vantage, you would set upon the birds of the finest feathers, would you 
not?” 

“ It is true, madame.” 

“ You have seen both dolls and birds to-day,” said Madame Defarge, 
with a wave of her hand towards the place where they had last been 
apparent; “ now go home! ” 


CHAPTER XVI 


STILL KNITTING 

M adame DEFARGE and monsieur her husband returned amic- 
ably to the bosom of Saint Antoine, while a speck in a blue cap 
toiled through the darkness, and through the dust, and down the weary 
miles of avenue by the wayside, slowly tending towards that point of the 
compass where the chateau of Monsieur the Marquis, now in his grave, 
listened to the whispering trees. Such ample leisure had the stone 
faces, now, for listening to the trees and to the fountain, that the few 
village scarecrows who, in their quest for herbs to eat and fragments 
of dead stick to burn, strayed within sight of the great stone court-yard 
and terrace staircase, had it borne in upon their starved fancy that the 
expression of the fa^es was altered. A rumor just lived in the village 
— had a faint and bare existence there, as its people had — that when 
the knife struck home, the faces changed, from faces of pride to faces 
of anger and pain; also, that when that dangling figure was hauled up 
forty feet above the fountain, they changed again, and bore a cruel look 
of being avenged, which they would henceforth bear for ever. In the 
stone face over the great window of the bed-chamber where the murder 
was done, two fine dints were pointed out in the sculptured nose, which 
everybody recognized, and which nobody had seen of old; and on the 
scarce occasion when two or three ragged peasants emerged from the 
crowd to take a hurried peep at Monsieur the Marquis petrified, a 
skinny finger would not have pointed to it for a minute, before they 
all started away among the moss and leaves, like the more fortunate 
hares who could find a living there. 

Chateau and hut, stone face and dangling figure, the red stain on the 
stone floor, and the pure water in the village well — thousands of acres 
of land — a whole province of France — all France itself — lay under 
the night sky, concentrated into a faint hair-breadth line. So does a 
whole world, with all its greatnesses and littlenesses, lie in a twinkling 
star. And as mere human knowledge can split a ray of light and 
analyze the manner of its composition, so, sublimer intelligences may 


STILL KNITTING 169 

read In fhe feeble shining of this earth of ours, every thought and act, 
every vice and virtue, of every responsible creature on it. 

The Defarges, husband and wife, came lumbering under the star- 
light, in their public vehicle, to that gate of Paris whereunto their jour- 
ney naturally tended. There was the usual stoppage at the barrier 
guard-house, and the usual lanterns came glancing forth for the usual 
examination and Inquiry. Monsieur Defarge alighted; knowing one or 
two of the soldiery there, and one of the police. The latter he was 
intimate with, and affectionately embraced. 

When Saint Antoine had again enfolded the Defarges in his dusky 
wings, and they, having finally alighted near the Saint’s boundaries, 
were picking their way on foot through the black mud and offal of his 
streets, Madame Defarge spoke to her husband: 

“ Say then, my friend; what did Jacques of the police tell thee? ” 

“ Very little to-night, but all he knows. There is another spy com- 
missioned for our quarter. There may be many more, for all that he 
can say, but he knows of one.” 

“ Eh well! ” said Madage Defarge, raising her eyebrows with a cool 
business air. “ It is necessary to register him. How do they call that 
man? ” 

“ He is English.” 

“ So much the better. His name? ” 

“ Barsad,” said Defarge, making it French by pronunciation. But, 
he had been so careful to get it accurately, that he then spelt it with 
perfect correctness. 

“Barsad,” repeated madame. “Good. Christian name?” 

“John.” 

“ John Barsad,” repeated madame, after murmuring it once to her- 
self. “Good. His appearance; is it known?” 

“Age, about forty years; height, about five feet nine; black hair; 
complexion dark; generally, rather handsome visage; eyes dark, face 
thin, long, and sallow; nose aquiline, but not straight, having a peculiar 
inclination towards the left cheek; expression, therefore, sinister.” 

“ Eh my faith. It is a portrait 1 ” said madame, laughing. “ He 
shall be registered to-morrow.” 

They turned Into the wine-shop, which was closed (for it was mid- 
night), and where Madame Defarge immediately took her post at her 
desk, counted the small moneys that had been taken during her absence. 



A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


170 

examined the stock, went through the entries in the book, made other 
entries of her own, checked the serving man in every possible way, and 
finally dismissed him to bed. Then she turned out the contents of the 
bowl of money for the second time, and began knotting them up in her 
handkerchief, in a chain of separate knots, for safe keeping through 
the night. All this while, Defarge, with his pipe in his mouth, walked 
up and down, complacently admiring, but never interfering; in which 
condition, indeed, as to the business and his domestic affairs, he walked 
up and down through life. 

The night was hot, and the shop, close shut and surrounded by so 
foul a neighborhood, was ill-smelling. Monsieur Defarge’s olfactory 
sense was by no means delicate, but the stock of wine smelt much 
stronger than it ever tasted, and so did the stock of rum and brandy 
and aniseed. He whiffed the compound of scents away, as he put down 
his smoked-out pipe. 

“ You are fatigued,” said madame, raising her glance as she knotted 
the money. “ There are only the usual odors.” 

“ I am a little tired,” her husband acknowledged. 

“ You are a little depressed, too,” said madame, whose quick eyes 
had never been so intent on the accounts, but they had had a ray or two 
for him. “ Oh the men, the men! ” 

“ But my dear! ” began Defarge. 

“ But my dear ! ” repeated madame, nodding firmly ‘‘ but my dear ! 
You are faint of heart to-night, my dear! ” 

“ Well, then,” said Defarge, as if a thought were wrung out of his 
breast, “ it is a long time.” 

” It is a long time,” repeated his wife; “ and when is it not a long 
time? Vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is the rule.” 

“ It does not take a long time to strike a man with lightning,” said 
Defarge. 

“ How long,” demanded madame, composedly, “ does it take to make 
and store the lightning? Tell me.” 

Defarge raised his head thoughtfully, as if there were something in 
that too. 

“ It does not take a long time,” said madame, “ for an earthquake 
to swallow a town. Eh well! Tell me how long it takes to prepare 
the earthquake? ” 

“ A long time, I suppose,” said Defarge. 


STILL KNITTING 


171 

“ But when it is ready, it takes place, and grinds to pieces everything 
before it. In the meantime, it is always preparing, though it is not seen 
or heard. That is your consolation. Keep it.” 

She tied a knot with flashing eyes, as if it throttled a foe. 

“ I tell thee,” said madame, extending her right hand, for emphasis, 
“ that although it is a long time on the road, it is on the road and 
coming. I tell thee it never retreats, and never stops. I tell thee it is 
always advancing. Look around and consider the lives of all the world 
that we know, consider the faces of all the world that we know, con- 
sider the rage and discontent to which the Jacquerie addresses itself 
with more and more of certainty every hour. Can such things last? 
Bah I I mock you.” 

“ My brave wife,” returned Defarge, standing before her with his 
head a little bent and his hands clasped at his back, like a docile and 

attentive pupil before his catechist, “ I do not question all this. But 

it has lasted a long time, and it is possible — you know well, my wife, 
it is possible — that it may not come, during our lives.” 

“Eh well! How then?” demanded madj^me, tying another knot, 
as if there were another enemy strangled. 

“Well! ” said Defarge, with a half complaining and half apologetic 
shrug. “ We shall not see the triumph.” 

“ We shall have helped it,” returned madame, with her extended 
hand in strong action. “ Nothing that we do, is done in vain. I be- 
lieve, with all my soul, that we shall see the triumph. But even if not, 

even if I knew certainly not, show me the neck of an aristocrat and 
tyrant, and still I would — ” 

Then madame, with her teeth set, tied a very terrible knot indeed. 

“ Hold! ” cried Defarge, reddening a little as if he felt charged with 
cowardice; “ I too, my dear, will stop at nothing.” 

“ Yes ! But it is your weakness that you sometimes need to see your 
victim and your opportunity, to sustain you. Sustain yourself without 
that. When the time comes, let loose a tiger and a devil; but wait for 
the time with the tiger and the devil chained — not shown — yet always 
ready.” 

Madame enforced the conclusion of this piece of advice by striking 
her little counter with her chain of money as if she knocked its brains 
out, and then gathering the heavy handkerchief under her arm in a 
serene manner, and observing that it was time to go to bed. 


172 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Next noontide saw the admirable woman in her usual place in the 
wine-shop, knitting away assiduously. A rose lay beside her, and if 
she now and then glanced at the flower, it was with no infraction of 
her usual preoccupied air. There were a few customers, drinking or 
not drinking, standing or seated, sprinkled about. The day was very 
hot, and heaps of flies, who were extending their inquisitive and adven- 
turous perquisitions into all the glutinous little glasses near madame, 
fell dead at the bottom. Their decease made no impression on the 
other flies out promenading, who looked at them in the coolest man- 
ner (as if they themselves were* elephants, or something as far re- 
moved) until they met the same fate. Curious to consider how heed- 
less flies are ! — perhaps they thought as much at Court that sunny 
summer day. 

A figure entering at the door threw a shadow on Madame Defarge 
which she felt to be a new one. She laid down her knitting, and began 
to pin her rose in her head-dress, before she looked at the figure. 

It was curious. The moment Madame Defarge took up the rose, 
the customers ceased talking, and began gradually to drop out of the 
wine-shop. 

“ Good-day, madame,” said the new-comer. 

“ Good-day, monsieur.” 

She said it aloud, but added to herself, as she resumed her knitting: 
“Hah! Good-day, age about forty, height about five feet nine, black 
hair, generally rather handsome visage, complexion dark, eyes dark, 
thin long and sallow face, aquiline nose but not straight, having a 
peculiar inclination towards the left cheek which imparts a sinister ex- 
pression! Good-day, one and all! ” 

“ Have the goodness to give me a little glass of old cognac, and a 
mouthful of cool fresh water, madame.” 

Madame complied with a polite air. 

“ Marvellous cognac this, madame ! ” 

It was the first time it had ever been so complimented, and Madame 
Defarge knew enough of its antecedents to know better. She said, 
however, that the cognac was flattered, and took up her knitting. The 
visitor watched her fingers for a few moments, and took the opportunity 
of observing the place in general. 

“ You knit with great skill, madame.” 

“ I am accustomed to it.” 


STILL KNITTING 


173 


“ A pretty pattern too ! ” 

“ You think so? ” said madame, looking at him with a smile. 

“ Decidedly. May one ask what it is for?” 

“ Pastime,” said madame, still looking at him with a smile, while 
her fingers moved nimbly. 

“Not for use?” 

“ That depends. I may find a use for it one day. If I do — well,” 
said madame, drawing a breath and nodding her head with a stern kind 
of coquetry, “ I’ll use it! ” 

It was remarkable; but, the taste of Saint Antoine seemed to be 
decidedly opposed to a rose on the headdress of Madame Defarge. 
Two men had entered separately, and had been about to order drink, 
when, catching sight of that novelty, they faltered, made a pretence of 
looking about as if for some friend who was not there, and went away. 
Nor, of those who had been there when this visitor entered, was there 
one left. They had all dropped off. The spy had kept his eyes open, 
but had been able to detect no sign. They had lounged away in a pov- 
erty-stricken, purposeless, accidental manner, quite natural and unim- 
peachable. 

“ John,” thought madame, checking off her work as her fingers 
knitted, and her eyes looked at the stranger. “ Stay long enough, and 
I shall knit ‘ Barsad ’ before you go.” 

“ You have a husband, madame? ” 

“ I have.” 

“ Children?” 

“ No children.” 

“ Business seems bad? ” 

“ Business is very bad; the people are so poor.” 

“ Ah, the unfortunate, miserable people 1 So oppressed, too — as 
you say.” 

“ As you say** madame retorted, correcting him, and deftly knitting 
an extra something into his name that boded him no good. 

“ Pardon me, certainly it was I who said so, but you naturally think 
so. Of course.” 

''I think? ” returned madame, in a high voice. “ I and my husband 
have enough to do to keep this wine-shop open, without thinking. All 
we think, here, is how to live. That is the subject we think of, and it 
gives us, from morning to night, enough to think about, without em- 


174 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


barrasslng our heads concerning others. 7 think for others? No, no.” 

The spy, who was there to pick up any crumbs he could find or make, 
did not allow his baffled state to express itself in his sinister face; but, 
stood with an air of gossiping gallantry, leaning his elbow on Madame 
Defarge’s little counter, and occasionally sipping his cognac. 

“ A bad business this, madame, of Gaspard’s execution. Ah ! the poor 
Gaspard! ” With a sigh of great compassion. 

“ My faith I ” returned madame, coolly and lightly, “ if people use 
knives for such purposes, they have to pay for it. He knew beforehand 
what the price of his luxury was; he has paid the price.” 

“ I believe,” said the spy, dropping his soft voice to a tone that in- 
vited confidence, and expressing an injured revolutionary susceptibility 
in every muscle of his wicked face : “ I believe there is much compas- 

sion and anger in this neighborhood, touching the poor fellow? Be- 
tween ourselves.” 

“ Is there? ” asked madame, vacantly. 

“Is there not?” 

“ — Here is my husband! ” said Madame Defarge. 

As the keeper of the wine-shop entered at the door, the spy saluted 
him by touching his hat, and saying, with an engaging smile, “ Good-day, 
Jacques! ” Defarge stopped short, and stared at him. 

“ Good-day, Jacques! ” the spy repeated; with not quite so much con- 
fidence, or quite so easy a smile under the stare. 

“ You deceive yourself, monsieur,” returned the keeper of the wine- 
shop. “ You mistake me for another. That is not my name. I am 
Ernest Defarge.” 

“ It is all the same,” said the spy, airily, but discomfited too : “ good- 
day ! ” 

“Good-day!” answered Defarge, drily. 

“ I was saying to madame, with whom I had the pleasure of chatting 
when you entered, that they tell me there is — and no wonder — much 
sympathy and anger in Saint Antoine, touching the unhappy fate of poor 
Gaspard.” 

“ No one has told me so,” said Defarge, shaking his head. “ I know 
nothing of it.” 

Having said it, he passed behind the little counter, and stood with his 
hand on the back of his wife’s chair, looking over that barrier at the 


STILL KNITTING 


175 


person to whom they were both opposed, and whom either of them 
would have shot with the greatest satisfaction. 

The spy, well used to his business, did not change his unconscious 
attitude, but drained his little glass of cognac, took a sip of fresh water, 
and asked for another glass of cognac. Madame Defarge poured it 
out for him, took to her knitting again, and hummed a little song over it. 

“ You seem to know this quarter well; that Is to say, better than I 
do,” observed Defarge. 

“ Not at all, but I hope to know it better. I am so profoundly Inter- 
ested In Its miserable Inhabitants.” 

“ Hah ! ” muttered Defarge. 

“ The pleasure of conversing with you. Monsieur Defarge, recalls to 
me,” pursued the spy, “ that I have the honor of cherishing some inter- 
esting associations with your name.” 

“ Indeed ! ” said Defarge, with much indifference. 

“ Yes, Indeed. When Doctor Manette was released, you, his old 
domestic, had the charge of him, I know. He was delivered to you. 
You see I am informed of the circumstances? ” 

“ Such Is the fact, certainly,” said Defarge. He had had it conveyed 
to him. In an accidental touch of his wife’s elbow as she knitted and 
warbled, that he would do best to answer, but always with brevity. 

“ It was to you,” said the spy, “ that his daughter came; and it was 
from your care that his daughter took him, accompanied by a neat brown 
monsieur; how Is he called? — In a little wig — Lorry — of the bank 
of Tellson and Company — over to England.” 

“ Such is the fact,” repeated Defarge. 

“Very interesting remembrances!” said the spy. “I have known 
Dr. Manette and his daughter. In England.” 

“*Yes?” said Defarge. 

“ You don’t hear much about them now? ” said the spy. 

“ No,” said Defarge. 

“ In effect,” madame struck In, looking up from her work and her 
little song, “ we never hear about them. We received the news of their 
safe arrival, and perhaps another letter, or perhaps two; but, since then, 
they have gradually taken their road In life — we, ours — and we have 
held no correspondence.” 

“ Perfectly so, madame,” replied the spy. “ She is going to be mar- 
ried.” 


176 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ Going? ” echoed madame. “ She was pretty enough to have been 
married long ago. You English are cold, it seems to me.” 

“ Oh! You know I am English.” 

“ I perceive your tongue is,” returned madame; “ and what the tongue 
is, I suppose the man is.” 

He did not take the identification as a compliment; but he made the 
best of it, and turned it off with a laugh. After sipping his cognac to 
the end, he added: 

“ Yes, Miss Manette is going to be married. But not to an English- 
man; to one who, like herself, is French by birth. And speaking of 
Gaspard (ah, poor Gaspard! It was cruel, cruel!), it is a curious 
thing that she is going to marry the nephew of Monsieur the Marquis, 
for whom Gaspard was exalted to that height of so many feet; in other 
words, the present Marquis. But he lives unknown in England, he is 
no Marquis there; he is, Mr. Charles Darnay. D’Aulnais is the name 
of his mother’s family.” 

Madame Defarge knitted steadily, but the intelligence had a palpable 
effect upon her husband. Do what he would, behind the little counter, 
as to the striking of a light and the lighting of his pipe, he was troubled, 
and his hand was not trustworthy. The spy would have been no spy if 
he had failed to see it, or to record it in his mind. 

Having made, at least, this one hit, whatever it might prove to be 
worth, and no customers coming in to help him to any other, Mr. Barsad 
paid for what he had drunk, and took his leave; taking occasion to say, 
in a genteel manner, before he departed, that he looked forward to the 
pleasure of seeing Monsieur and Madame Defarge again. For some 
minutes after he had emerged into the outer presence of Saint Antoine, 
the husband and wife remained exactly as he had left them, lest he 
should come back. 

” Can it be true,” said Defarge, in a low voice, looking down at his 
wife as he stood smoking with his hand on the back of her chair : “ what 
he has said of Ma’amselle Manette? ” 

“ As he has said it,” returned madame, lifting her eyebrows a little, 
“ it is probably false. But it may be true.” 

” If it is — ” Defarge began, and stopped. 

“ If it is? ” repeated his wife. 

“ — And if it does come, while we live to see it triumph — I hope, for 
her sake. Destiny will keep her husband out of France.” 



© C. B. C. 

Madame Defarge — a Missionary such as the world will do well tiever to breed again '/ 



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STILL KNITTING 


177 


‘‘ Her husband’s destiny,” said Madame Defarge, with her usual com- 
posure, “ will take him where he is to go, and will lead him to the end 
that is to end him. That is all I know.” 

“ But it is very strange — now, at least, is it not very strange ” — 
said Defarge, rather pleading with his wife to induce her to admit it, 
“ that, after all our sympathy for Monsieur her father, and herself, her 
husband’s name should be proscribed under your hand at this moment, 
by the side of that infernal dog’s who has just left us? ” 

“ Stranger things than that will happen when it does come,” answered 
madame. “ I have them both here, of a certainty; and they are both 
here for their merits; that is enough.” 

She rolled up her knitting when she had said those words, and pres- 
ently took the rose out of the handkerchief that was wound about her 
head. Either Saint Antoine had an instinctive sense that the objection- 
able decoration was gone, or Saint Antoine was on the watch for its 
disappearance ; howbeit, the Saint took courage to lounge in, very shortly 
afterwards, and the wine-shop recovered its habitual aspect. 

In the evening, at which season of all others Saint Antoine turned him- 
self inside out, and sat on doorsteps and window-ledges, and came to the 
corners of vile streets and courts, for a breath of air, Madame Defarge 
with her work in her hand was accustomed to pass from place to place 
and from group to group; a Missionary — there were many like her — 
such as the world will do well never to breed again. All the women 
knitted. They knitted worthless things; but, the mechanical work was 
a mechanical substitute for eating and drinking; the hands moved for the 
jaws and the digestive apparatus; if the bony fingers had been still, the 
stomachs would have been more famine-pinched. 

But, as the fingers went, the eyes went, and the thoughts. And as 
Madame Defarge moved on from group to group, all three went quicker 
and fiercer among every little knot of women that she had spoken with, 
and left behind. 

Her husband smoked at his door, looking after her with admiration. 
“ A great woman,” said he, “ a strong woman, a grand woman, a fright- 
fully grand woman ! ” 

Darkness closed around, and then came the ringing of church bells and 
the distant beating of the military drums in the Palace Court-Yard, as 
the women sat knitting, knitting. Darkness encompassed them. An- 
other darkness was closing in as surely, when the church bells, then 


178 A TALE OF TWO CITIES 

ringing pleasantly in many an airy steeple over France, should be melted 
into thundering cannon; when the military drums should be beating to 
drown a wretched voice, that night all-potent as the voice of Power 
and Plenty, Freedom and Life. So much was closing in about the 
women who sat knitting, knitting, that they their very selves were closing 
in around a structure yet unbuilt, where they were to sit knitting, knitting, 
counting dropping heads. 


CHAPTER XVII 

ONE NIGHT 

N ever did the sun go down with a brighter glory on the quiet 
corner in Soho, than one memorable evening when the Doctor 
and his daughter sat under the plane-tree together. Never did the 
moon rise with a milder radiance over great London, than on that night 
when it found them still seated under the tree, and shone upon their 
faces through its leaves. 

Lucie was to be married to-morrow. She had reserved this last 
evening for her father, and they sat alone under the plane-tree. 

“ You are happy, my dear father? ” 

“ Quite, my child.” 

They had said little, though they had been there a long time. When 
it was yet light enough to work and read, she had neither engaged her- 
self in her usual work, nor had she read to him. She had employed 
herself in both ways, at his side under the tree, many and many a time; 
but, this time was not quite like any other, and nothing could make it so. 

“ And I am very happy to-night, dear father. I am deeply happy in 
the love that Heaven has so blessed — my love for Charles, and 
Charles’s love for me. But, if my life were not to be still consecrated 
to you, or if my marriage were so arranged as that it would part us, 
even by the length of a few of these streets, I should be more unhappy 
and self-reproachful now than I can tell you. Even as it is — ” 

Even as it was, she could not command her voice. 

In the sad moonlight, she clasped him by the neck, and laid her face 
upon his breast; in the moonlight which is always sad, as the light of 
the sun itself is — as the light called human life is — at its coming and 
its going. 

‘‘Dearest dear! Can you tell me, this last time, that you feel quite, 
quite sure, no new affections of mine, and no new duties of mine, will 
ever interpose between us? I know it well, but do you know it? In 
your own heart, do you feel quite certain?” 

179 


/ 


i8o 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Her father answered, with a cheerful firmness of conviction he could 
scarcely have assumed, “Quite sure, my darling! More than that,” 
he added, as he tenderly kissed her, “ my future is far brighter, Lucie, 
seen through your marriage, than it could have been — nay, than it ever 
was — without it.” 

“ If I could hope that, my father! — ” 

“ Believe it, love ! Indeed it is so. Consider how natural and how 
plain it is, my dear, that it should be so. You, devoted and young, 
cannot fully appreciate the anxiety I have felt that your life should not 
be wasted — ” 

She moved her hand towards his lips, but he took it in his, and re- 
peated the word. 

“ — wasted, my child — should not be wasted, struck aside from the 
natural order of things — for my sake. Your unselfishness cannot 
entirely comprehend how much my mind has gone on this; but, only ask 
yourself, how could my happiness be perfect, while yours was incom- 
plete? ” 

“ If I had never seen Charles, my father, I should have been quite 
happy with you.” 

He smiled at her unconscious admission that she would have been 
unhappy without Charles, having seen him; and replied: 

“ My child, you did see him, and it is Charles. If it had not been 
Charles, it would have been another. Or, if it had been no other, I 
should have been the cause, and then the dark part of my life would 
have cast its shadow beyond myself, and would have fallen on you.” 

It was the first time, except at the trial, of her ever hearing him refer 
to the period of his suffering. It gave her a strange and new sensation 
while his words were in her ears; and she remembered it long after- 
wards. 

“See! ” said the Doctor of Beauvais, raising his hand towards the 
moon. “ I have looked at her from my prison-window, when I could 
not bear her light. I have looked at her when it has been such torture 
to me to think of her shining upon what I had lost, that I have beaten 
my head against my prison-walls. I have looked at her, in a state so 
dull and lethargic, that I have thought of nothing but the number of 
horizontal lines I could draw across her at the full, and the number of 
perpendicular lines with which I could intersect them.” He added in 
his inward and pondering manner, as he looked at the moon, “ It was 


ONE NIGHT i8i 

twenty either way, I remember, and the twentieth was difficult to squeeze 
in.” 

The strange thrill with which she heard him go back to that time, 
deepened as he dwelt upon it; but, there was nothing to shock her in the 
manner of his reference. He only seemed to contrast his present cheer- 
fulness and felicity with the dire endurance that was over. 

“ I have looked at her, speculating thousands of times upon the 
unborn child from whom I had been rent. Whether it was alive. 
Whether it had been born alive, or the poor mother’s shock had killed 
it. Whether it was a son who would some day avenge his father. 
(There was a time in my imprisonment, when my desire for vengeance 
was unbearable.) Whether it was a son who would never know his 
father’s story; who might even live to weigh the possibility of his 
father’s having disappeared of his own will and act. Whether it was a 
daughter who would grow to be a woman.” 

She drew closer to him, and kissed his cheek and his hand. 

“ I have pictured my daughter, to myself, as perfectly forgetful of 
me — rather, altogether ignorant of me, and unconscious of me. I 
have cast up the years of her age, year after year. I have seen her 
married to a man who knew nothing of my fate. I have altogether 
perished from the remembrance of the living, and in the next generation 
my place was a blank.” 

“ My father ! Even to hear that you had such thoughts of a daughter 
who never existed, strikes to my heart as if I had been that child.” 

“ You, Lucie? It is out of the consolation and restoration you have 
brought to me, that these remembrances arise, and pass between us 
and the moon on this last night. What did I say just now? ” 

“ She knew nothing of you. She cared nothing for you.” 

“ So ! But on other moonlight nights, when the sadness and the 
silence have touched me in a different way — have affected me with 
something as like a sorrowful sense of peace, as any emotion that had 
pain for its foundations could — I have imagined her as coming to me 
in my cell, and leading me out into the freedom beyond the fortress. I 
have seen her image in the moonlight often, as I now see you; except 
that I never held her in my arms; it stood between the little grated win- 
dow and the door. But, you understand that that was not the child I 
am speaking of? ” 

“ The figure was not; the — the — image; the fancy? ” 


i 82 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ No. That was another thing. It stood before my disturbed sense 
of sight, but it never moved. The phantom that my mind pursued, was 
another and more real child. Of her outward appearance I know no 
more than that she was like her mother. The other had that likeness 
too — as you have — but was not the same. Can you follow me, 
Lucie? Hardly, I think? I doubt you must have been a solitary pris- 
oner to understand these perplexed distinctions.” 

His collected and calm manner could not prevent her blood from 
running cold, as he thus tried to anatomize his old condition. 

“ In that more peaceful state, I have imagined her, in the moonlight, 
coming to me and taking me out to show me that the home of her 
married life was full of her loving remembrance of her lost father. 
My picture was in her room, and I was in her prayers. Her life was 
active, cheerful, useful; but my poor history pervaded it all.” 

“ I was that child, my father. I was not half so good, but in my 
love that was I.” 

“ And she showed me her children,” said the Doctor of Beauvais, 
“ and they had heard of me, and had been taught to pity me. When 
they passed a prison of the State, they kept far from its frowning walls, 
and looked up at its bars, and spoke in whispers. She could never 
deliver me; I imagined that she always brought me back after showing 
me such things. But then, blessed with the relief of tears, I fell upon 
my knees, and blessed her.” 

“ I am that child, I hope, my father. O my dear, my dear, will you 
bless me as fervently to-morrow? ” 

“ Lucie, I recall these old troubles in the reason that I have to-night 
for loving you better than words can tell, and thanking God for my 
great happiness. My thoughts, when they were wildest, never rose 
near the happiness that 1 have known with you, and that we have before 
us.” 

He embraced her, solemnly commended her to Heaven, and humbly 
thanked Heaven for having bestowed her on him. By and by, they 
went into the house. 

There was no one bidden to the marriage but Mr. Lorry; there was 
even to be no bridesmaid but the gaunt Miss Pross. The marriage was 
to make no change in their place of residence; they had been able to 
extend it, by taking to themselves the upper rooms formerly belonging 
to the apocryphal invisible lodger, and they desired nothing more. 


ONE NIGHT 


183 

Doctor Manette was very cheerful at the little supper. They were 
only three at table, and Miss Pross made the third. He regretted that 
Charles was not there; was more than half disposed to object to the 
loving little plot that kept him away; and drank to him affectionately. 

So, the time came for him to bid Lucie good-night, and they separated. 
But, in the stillness of the third hour of the morning, Lucie came down- 
stairs again, and stole into his room; not free from unshaped fears, 
beforehand. 

All things, however, were in their places; all was quiet; and he lay 
asleep, his white hair picturesque on the untroubled pillow, and his 
hands lying quiet on the coverlet. She put her needless candle in the 
shadow at a distance, crept up to his bed, and put her lips to his; then, 
leaned over him, and looked at him. 

Into his handsome face, the bitter waters of captivity had worn; but, 
he covered up their tracks with a determination so strong, that he held 
the mastery of them even in his sleep. A more remarkable face in its 
quiet, resolute, and guarded struggle with an unseen assailant, was not 
to be beheld in all the wide dominions of sleep, that night. 

She timidly laid her hand on his dear breast, and put up a prayer 
that she might ever be as true to him as her love aspired to be, and as 
his sorrows deserved. Then, she withdrew her hand, and kissed his 
lips once more, and went away. So, the sunrise came, and the shadows 
of the leaves of the plane-tree moved upon his face, as softly as her 
lips had moved in praying for him. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


NINE DAYS 


HE marriage-day was shining brightly, and they were ready out- 



1 side the closed door of the Doctor’s room, where he was speaking 
with Charles Darnay. They were ready to go to church; the beauti- 
ful bride, Mr. Lorry, and Miss Pross — to whom the events, through a 
gradual process of reconcilement to the inevitable, would have been 
one of absolute bliss, but for the yet lingering consideration that her 
brother Solomon should have been the bridegroom. 

“ And so,” said Mr. Lorry, who could not sufficiently admire the 
bride, and who had been moving round her to take in every point of 
her quiet, pretty dress; “ and so it was for this, my sweet Lucie, that I 
brought you across the Channel, such a baby ! Lord bless me ! How 
little I thought what I was doing! How lightly I valued the obliga- 
tion I was conferring on my friend Mr. Charles! ” 

“ You didn’t mean it,” remarked the matter-of-fact Miss Pross, “ and 
therefore how could you know it? Nonsense! ” 

“ Really. Well; but don’t cry,” said the gentle Mr. Lorry. 

“ I am not crying,” said Miss Pross; you are.” 

“I, my Pross?” (By this time, Mr. Lorry dared to be pleasant 
with her, on occasion.) 

“ You were, just now; I saw you do it, and I don’t wonder at it. Such 
a present of plate as you have made ’em, is enough to bring tears into 
anybody’s eyes. There’s not a fork or a spoon in the collection,” said 
Miss Pross, “ that I didn’t cry over, last night after the box came, 
till I couldn’t see it.” 

“ I am highly gratified,” said Mr. Lorry, “ though, upon my honor, 
I had no intention of rendering those trifling articles of remembrance in- 
visible to any one. Dear me ! This is an occasion that makes a man 
speculate on all he has lost. Dear, dear, dear! To think that there 
might have been a Mrs. Lorry, any time these fifty years almost! ” 

“Not at all! ” From Miss Pross. 

“ You think there never might have been a Mrs. Lorry?” asked the 
gentleman of that name. 

“ Pooh! ” rejoined Miss Pross; “ you were a bachelor in your cradle.” 


NINE DAYS 185 

“Well!” observed Mr. Lorry, beamingly adjusting his little wig, 
“ that seems probable, too.” 

“ And you were cut out for a bachelor,” pursued Miss Pross, “ before 
you were put in your cradle.” 

“ Then, I think,” said Mr. Lorry, “ that I was very unhandsomely 
dealt with, and that I ought to have had a voice in the selection of my 
pattern. Enough I Now, my dear Lucie,” drawing his arm soothingly 
round her waist, “ I hear them moving in the next room, and Miss 
Pross and I, as two formal folks of business, are anxious not to 
lose the final opportunity of saying something to you that you wish to 
hear. You leave your good father, my dear, in hands as earnest and 
as loving as your own; he shall be taken every conceivable care of; 
during the next fortnight, while you are in Warwickshire and there- 
abouts, even Tellson’s shall go to the wall (comparatively speaking) 
before him. And when, at the fortnight’s end, he comes to join you 
and your beloved husband, on your other fortnight’s trip in Wales, you 
shall say that we have sent him to you in the best health and in the 
happiest frame. Now, I hear Somebody’s step coming to the door. 
Let me kiss my dear girl with an old-fashioned bachelor blessing, before 
Somebody comes to claim his own.” 

For a moment, he held the fair face from him to look at the well- 
remembered expression on the forehead, and then laid the bright golden 
hair against his little browm wig, with a genuine tenderness and delicacy 
which, if such things be old-fashioned, were as old as Adam. 

The door of the Doctor’s room opened, and he came out with Charles 
Darnay. He was so deadly pale — which had not been the case when 
they went in together — that no vestige of color was to be seen in his 
face. But, in the composure of his manner he was unaltered, except that 
to the shrewd glance of Mr. Lorry it disclosed some shadowy indication 
that the old air of avoidance and dread had lately passed over him, like 
a cold wind. 

He gave his arm to his daughter, and took her downstairs to the 
chariot which Mr. Lorry had hired in honor of the day. The rest 
followed in another carriage, and soon, in a neighboring church, where 
no strange eyes looked on, Charles Darnay and Lucie Manette were 
happily married. 

Besides the glancing tears that shone among the smiles of the little 
group when it was done, some diamonds, very bright and sparkling, 
glanced on the bride’s hand, which were newly released from the dark 


i86 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


obscurity of one of Mr. Lorry’s pockets. They returned home to 
breakfast, and all went well, and in due course the golden hair that had 
mingled with the poor shoemaker’s white locks in the Paris garret, were 
mingled with them again in the morning sunlight, on the threshold of the 
door at parting. 

It was a hard parting though it was not for long. But her father 
cheered her, and said at last, gently disengaging himself from her en- 
folding arms, “Take her, Charles! She is yours! ” 

And her agitated hand waved to them from a chaise window, and 
she was gone. 

The corner being out of the way of the idle and curious, and the 
preparations having been very simple and few, the Doctor, Mr. Lorry, 
and Miss Pross, were left quite alone. It was when they turned into 
the welcome shade of the cool old hall, that Mr. Lorry observed a 
great change to have come over the Doctor; as if the golden arm up- 
lifted there, had struck him a poisoned blow. 

He had naturally repressed much, and some revulsion might have 
been expected in him when the occasion for repression was gone. But, 
it was the old scared lost look that troubled Mr. Lorry; and through his 
absent manner of clasping his head and drearily wandering away into 
his own room when they got upstairs, Mr. Lorry was reminded of 
Defarge the wine-shop keeper, and the starlight ride. 

“ I think,” he whispered to Miss Pross, after anxious consideration, 
“ I think we had best not speak to him just now, or at all disturb him. 
I must look in at Tellson’s; so I will go there at once and come back 
presently. Then, we will take him a ride into the country, and dine 
there, and all will be well.” 

It was easier for Mr. Lorry to look in at Tellson’s, than to look out 
of Tellson’s. He was detained two hours. When he came back, he 
ascended the old staircase alone, having asked no question of the servant; 
going thus into the Doctor’s rooms, he was stopped by a low sound of 
knocking. 

“ Good God ! ” he said, with a start. “ What’s that? ” 

Miss Pross, with a terrified face, was at his ear. “ O me, O me ! 
All is lost! ” cried she, wringing her hands. “ What is to be told to 
Ladybird? He doesn’t know me, and is making shoes! ” 

Mr. Lorry said what he could to calm her, and went himself into the 
Doctor’s room. The bench was turned towards the light, as it had been 


NINE DAYS 


187 


when he had seen the shoemaker at his work before, and his head was 
bent down, and he was very busy. 

Doctor Manette. My dear friend, Doctor Manette ! ” 

The Doctor looked at him for a moment — half inquiringly, half as if 
he were angry at being spoken to — and bent over his work again. 

He had laid aside his coat and waistcoat; his shirt was open at the 
throat, as it used to be when he did that work; and even the old haggard, 
faded surface of face had come back to him. He worked hard — 
impatiently — as if in some sense of having been interrupted. 

Mr. Lorry glanced at the work in his hand, and observed that it was 
a shoe of the old size and shape. He took up another that was lying 
by him, and asked what it was ? 

“A young lady’s walking shoe,” he muttered, without looking up. 
“ It ought to have been finished long ago. Let it be.” 

“ But, Doctor Manette. Look at me! ” 

He obeyed, in the old mechanically submissive manner, without paus- 
ing in his work. 

“ You know me, my dear friend? Think again. This is not your 
proper occupation. Think, dear friend! ” 

Nothing would induce him to speak more. He looked up, for an 
instant at a time, when he was requested to do so; but, no persuasion 
would extract a word from him. He worked, and worked, and worked, 
in silence, and words fell on him as they would have fallen on an echo- 
less wall, or on the air. The only ray of hope that Mr. Lorry could 
discover, was, that he sometimes furtively looked up without being 
asked. In that, there seemed a faint expression of curiosity or per- 
plexity — as though he were trying to reconcile some doubts in his 
mind. 

Two things at once impressed themselves on Mr. Lorry, as impor- 
tant above all others ; the first, that this must be kept secret from Lucie ; 
the second, that it must be kept secret from all who knew him. In con- 
junction with Miss Pross, he took immediate steps towards the latter 
precaution, by giving out that the Doctor was not well, and required a 
few days of complete rest. In aid of the kind deception to be practiced 
on his daughter. Miss Pross was to write, describing his having been 
called away professionally, and referring to an imaginary letter of two 
or three hurried lines in his own hand, represented to have been ad- 
dressed to her by the same post. 


i88 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


These measures, advisable to be taken in any case, Mr. Lorry took 
in the hope of his coming to himself. If that should happen soon, he 
kept another course in reserve; which was, to have a certain opinion that 
he thought the best, on the Doctor’s case. 

In the hope of his recovery, and of resort to this third course being 
thereby rendered practicable, Mr. Lorry resolved to watch him atten- 
tively, with as little appearance as possible of doing so. He, therefore, 
made arrangements to absent himself from Tellson’s for the first time 
in his life, and took his post by the window in the same room. 

He was not long in discovering that it was worse than useless to 
speak to him, since, on being pressed, he became worried. He aban- 
doned that attempt on the first day, and resolved merely to keep him- 
self always before him, as a silent protest against the delusion into which 
he had fallen, or was falling. He remained, therefore, in his seat near 
the window, reading and writing, and expressing in as many pleasant 
and natural ways as he could think of, that it was a free place. 

Doctor Manette took what was given him to eat and drink, and 
worked on, that first day, until it was too dark to see — worked on, 
half an hour after Mr. Lorry could not have seen, for his life, to read 
or write. When he put his tools aside as useless, until morning, Mr. 
Lorry rose and said to him: 

“ Will you go out? ” 

He looked down at the floor on either side of him in the old manner, 
looked up in the old manner, and repeated in the old low voice : 

“Out?” 

“Yes; for a walk with me. Why not?” 

He made no effort to say why not, and said not a word more. But, 
Mr. Lorry thought he saw, as he leaned forward on his bench in the 
dusk, with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, that he 
was in some misty way asking himself, “Why not?” The sagacity 
of the man of business perceived an advantage here, and determined 
to hold it. 

Miss Pross and he divided the night into two watches, and observed 
him at intervals from the adjoining room. He paced up and down for 
a long time before he lay down; but, when he did finally lay himself 
down, he fell asleep. In the morning, he was up betimes, and went 
straight to his bench and to work. 

On this second day, Mr. Lorry saluted him cheerfully by his name, 


NINE DAYS 


and spoke to him on topics that had been of late familiar to them. He 
returned no reply, but it was evident that he heard what was said, 
and that he thought about it, however confusedly. This encouraged 
Mr. Lorry to have Miss Pross In with her work, several times during 
the day; at those times, they quietly spoke of Lucie, and of her father 
then present, precisely in the usual manner, and as If there were noth- 
ing amiss. This was done without any demonstrative accompaniment,4 
not long enough, or often enough to harass him; and it lightened Mr. 
Lorry’s friendly heart to believe that he looked up oftener, and that he 
appeared to be stirred by some perception of inconsistencies surround- 
ing him. 

When it fell dark again, Mr. Lorry asked him as before: 

“ Dear Doctor, will you go out?” 

As before, he repeated, “ Out? ” 

“ Yes; for a walk with me. Why not? ” 

This time, Mr. Lorry feigned to go out when he could extract no 
answer from him, and, after remaining absent for an hour, returned. 
In the meanwhile, the Doctor had removed to the seat in the window, 
and had sat there looking down at the plane-tree ; but, on Mr. Lorry’s 
return, he slipped away to his bench. 

The time went very slowly on, and Mr. Lorry’s hope darkened, and 
his heart grew heavier again, and grew yet heavier and heavier every 
day. The third day came and went, the fourth, the fifth. Five days, 
six days, seven days, eight days, nine days. 

With a hope ever darkening, and with a heart always growing heavier 
and heavier, Mr. Lorry passed through this anxious time. The secret 
was well kept, and Lucie was unconscious and happy; but he could not 
fail to observe that the shoemaker, whose hand had been a little out 
at first, was growing dreadfully skillful, and that he had never been so 
intent on his work, and that his hands had never been so nimble and 
expert, as in the dusk of the ninth evening. 


CHAPTER XIX 


AlSl OPINION 

W ORN out by anxious watching, Mr. Lorry fell asleep at his post. 

On the tenth morning of his suspense, he was startled by the 
shining of the sun into the room where a heavy slumber had overtaken 
him when it was dark night. 

He rubbed his eyes and roused himself; but he doubted, when he 
had done so, whether he was not still asleep. For, going to the door 
of the Doctor’s room and looking in, he perceived that the shoemaker’s 
bench and tools were put aside again, and that the Doctor himself sat 
reading at the window. He was in his usual morning dress, and his 
face (which Mr. Lorry could distinctly see), though still very pale, was 
calmly studious and attentive. 

Even when he had satisfied himself that he was awake, Mr. Lorry 
felt giddily uncertain for some few moments whether the late shoe- 
making might not be a disturbed dream of his own; for, did not his 
eyes show him his friend before him in his accustomed clothing and 
aspect, and employed as usual; and was there any sign within their range, 
that the change of which he had so strong an impression had actually 
happened? 

It was but the inquiry of his first confusion and astonishment, the 
answer being obvious. If the impression were not produced by a real 
corresponding and sufficient cause, how came he, Jarvis Lorry, there? 
How came he to have fallen asleep, in his clothes, on the sofa in Dr. 
Manette’s consulting-room, and to be debating these points outside the 
Doctor’s bedroom door in the early morning? 

Within a few minutes. Miss Pross stood whispering at his side. If 
he had had any particle of doubt left, her talk would of necessity have 
resolved it; but he was by that time clear-headed, and had none. He 
advised that they should let the time go by until the regular breakfast- 
hour, and should then meet the Doctor as if nothing unusual had oc- 
curred. If he appeared to be in his customary state of mind, Mr. Lorry 
would then cautiously proceed to seek direction and guidance from the 
opinion he had been, in his anxiety, so anxious to obtain. 

igo 


AN OPINION 


191 

Miss Pross submitting herself to his judgment, the scheme was 
worked out with care. Having abundance of time for his usual method- 
ical toilet, Mr. Lorry presented himself at the breakfast-hour in his 
usual white linen, and with his usual neat leg. The Doctor was sum- 
moned in the usual way, and came to breakfast. 

So far as it was possible to comprehend him without overstepping 
those delicate and gradual approaches which Mr. Lorry felt to be the 
only safe advance, he at first supposed that his daughter’s marriage 
had taken place yesterday. An incidental allusion, purposely thrown 
out, to the day of the week, and the day of the month, set him thinking 
and counting, and evidently made him uneasy. In all other respects, 
however, he was so composedly himself, that Mr. Lorry determined 
to have the aid he sought. And that aid was his own. 

Therefore, when the breakfast was done and cleared away, and he 
and the Doctor were left together, Mr. Lorry said, feelingly: 

“ My dear Manette, I am anxious to have your opinion, in confidence, 
on a very curious case in which I am deeply interested; that is to say, 
it is very curious to me; perhaps, to your better information it may be 
less so.” 

Glancing at his hands, which were discolored by his late work, the 
Doctor looked troubled, and listened attentively. He had already 
glanced at his hands more than once. 

“ Doctor Manette,” said Mr. Lorry, touching him affectionately on 
the arm, “ the case is the case of a particularly dear friend of mine. 
Pray give your mind to it, and advise me well for his sake — and above 
all, for his daughter’s — his daughter’s, my dear Manette.” 

“ If I understand,” said the Doctor, in a subdued tone, “ some mental 
shock — ? ” 

“Yes!” 

“ Be explicit,” said the Doctor. “ Spare no detail.” 

Mr. Lorry saw that they understood one another, and proceeded. 

“ My dear Manette, it is the case of an old and a prolonged shock, 
of great acuteness and severity to the affections, the feelings, the — 

the as you express it — the mind. The mind. It is the case of a 

shock under which the sufferer was borne down, one cannot say for how 
long, because I believe he cannot calculate the time himself, and there 
are no other means of getting at it. It is the case of a shock from which 
the sufferer recovered, by a process that he cannot trace himself — 


192 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


as I once heard him publicly relate in a striking manner. It is the 
case of a shock from which he has recovered, so completely, as to be a 
highly intelligent man, capable of close application of mind, and great 
exertion of body, and of constantly making fresh additions to his stock 
of knowledge, which was already very large. But, unfortunately, there 
has been,’^ he paused and took a deep breath — “ a slight relapse.” 

The Doctor, in a low voice, asked, “ Of how long duration? ” 

“ Nine days and nights.” 

” How did it show itself? I infer,” glancing at his hands again, 
“ in the resumption of some old pursuit connected with the shock? ” 

“ That is the fact.” 

“ Now, did you ever see him,” asked the Doctor, distinctly and col- 
lectedly, though in the same low voice, “ engaged in that pursuit orig- 
inally?” 

” Once.” 

“ And when the relapse fell on him, was he in most respects — or in 
all respects — as he was then? ” 

“ I think in all respects.” 

“ You spoke of his daughter. Does his daughter know of the re- 
lapse? ” 

“ No. It has been kept from her, and I hope will always be kept 
from her. It is known only to myself, and to one other who may be 
trusted.” 

The Doctor grasped his hand, and murmured, “ That was very kind. 
That was very thoughtful ! ” Mr. Lorry grasped his hand in return, 
and neither of the two spoke for a little while. 

“ Now, my dear Manette,” said Mr. Lorry, at length, in his most 
considerate and most affectionate way, “ I am a mere man of business, 
and unfit to cope with such intricate and difficult matters. I do not 
possess the kind of information necessary; I do not possess the kind of 
intelligence; I want guiding. There is no man in this world on whom 
I could so rely for right guidance, as on you. Tell me, how does this 
relapse come about? Is there danger of another? Could a repetition 
of it be prevented? How should a repetition of it be treated? How 
does it come about at all? What can I do for my friend? No man 
ever can have been more desirous in his heart to serve a friend, than I 
am to serve mine, if I knew how. But I don’t know how to originate, 
in such a case. If your sagacity, knowledge, and experience, could put 


AN OPINION 


193 

me on the right track, I might be able to do so much; unenlightened 
and undirected, I can do so little. Pray discuss it with me ; pray enable 
me to see it a little more clearly, and teach me how to be a little more 
useful.” 

Doctor Manette sat meditating after these earnest words were 
spoken, and Mr. Lorry did not press him. 

“ I think it probable,” said the Doctor, breaking silence with an effort, 
“ that the relapse you have described, my dear friend, was not quite 
unforeseen by its subject.” 

‘‘ Was it dreaded by him? ” Mr. Lorry ventured to ask. 

“ Very much.” He said it with an involuntary shudder. 

“ You have no Idea how such an apprehension weighs on the sufferer’s 
mind, and how difficult — how almost Impossible — It is, for him to 
force himself to utter a word upon the topic that oppresses him.” 

“ Would he,” asked Mr. Lorry, “ be sensibly relieved If he could 
prevail upon himself to Impart that secret brooding to any one, when 
it is on him? ” 

“ I think so. But It Is, as I have told you, next to impossible. I even 
believe it — in some cases — to be quite impossible.” 

” Now,” said Mr. Lorry, gently laying his hand on the Doctor’s arm 
again, after a short silence on both sides, “ to what would you refer this 
attack? ” 

“ I believe,” returned Doctor Manette, “ that there had been a strong 
and extraordinary revival of the train of thought and remembrance that 
was the first cause of the malady. Some intense associations of a most 
distressing nature were vividly recalled, I think. It is probable that 
there had long been a dread lurking in his mind, that those associations 
would be recalled — say, under certain circumstances — say, on a par- 
ticular occasion. He tried to prepare himself In vain; perhaps the 
effort to prepare himself made him less able to bear it.” 

“Would he remember what took place in the relapse?” asked Mr. 
Lorry, with natural hesitation. 

The Doctor looked desolately round the room, shook his head, and 
answered, in a low voice, “ Not at all.” 

“ Now, as to the future,” hinted Mr. Lorry. 

“ As to the future,” said the Doctor, recovering firmness, “ I should 
have great hope. As it pleased Heaven in Its mercy to restore him so 
soon, I should have great hope. He, yielding under the pressure of a 


194 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


complicated something, long dreaded and long vaguely foreseen and 
contended against, and recovering after the cloud had burst and passed, 
I should hope that the worst was over.” 

“Well, well! That’s good comfort. I am thankful!” said Mr. 
Lorry. 

“I am thankful!” repeated the Doctor, bending his head with 
reverence. 

“ There are two other points,” said Mr. Lorry, “ on which I am 
anxious to be instructed. I may go on? ” 

“ You cannot do your friend a better service.” The Doctor gave 
him his hand. 

“ To the first, then. He is of a studious habit, and unusually 
energetic; he applies himself with great ardor to the acquisition of pro- 
fessional knowledge, to the conducting of experiments, to many things. 
Now, does he do too much? ” 

“ I think not. It may be the character of his mind, to be always in 
singular need of occupation. That may be, in part, natural to it; in 
part, the result of affliction. The less it was occupied with healthy 
things, the more it would be in danger of turning in the unhealthy direc- 
tion. He may have observed himself, and made the discovery.” 

“ You are sure that he is not under too great a strain? ” 

“ I think I am quite sure of it.” 

“ My dear Manette, if he were overworked now — ” 

“ My dear Lorry, I doubt if that could easily be. There has been 
a violent stress in one direction, and it needs a counterweight.” 

“ Excuse me, as a persistent man of business. Assuming for a mo- 
ment, that he was overworked; it would show itself in some renewal 
of this disorder? ” 

“ I do not think so. I do not think,” said Doctor Manette with the 
firmness of self-conviction, “ that anything but the one train of asso- 
ciation would renew it. I think that, henceforth, nothing but some 
extraordinary jarring of that chord could renew it. After what has 
happened, and after his recovery, I find it difficult to imagine any such 
violent sounding of that string again. I trust, and I almost believe, 
that the circumstances likely to renew it are exhausted.” 

He spoke with the diffidence of a man who knew how slight a thing 
would overset the delicate organization of the mind, and yet with the 
confidence of a man who had slowly won his assurance out of personal 


AN OPINION 


195 

endurance and distress. It was not for his friend to abate that confi- 
dence. He professed himself more relieved and encouraged than he 
really was, and approached his second and last point. He felt it to 
be the most difficult of all; but, remembering his old Sunday morning 
conversation with Miss Pross, and remembering what he had seen in 
the last nine days, he knew that he must face it. 

“ The occupation resumed under the influence of this passing affliction 
so happily recovered from,” said Mr. Lorry, clearing his throat, ” we 
will call — blacksmith’s work, blacksmith’s work. We will say, to 
put a case and for the sake of illustration, that he had been used, in his 
bad time, to work at a little forge. We will say that he was unex- 
pectedly found at his forge again. Is it not a pity that he should keep 
it by him? ” 

The Doctor shaded his forehead with his hand, and beat his foot 
nervously on the ground. 

“ He has always kept it by him,” said Mr. Lorry, with an anxious 
look at his friend. “ Now, would it not be better that he should let 
it go ? ” 

Still, the Doctor, with the shaded forehead, beat his foot nervously 
on the ground. 

“ You do not find it easy to advise me? ” said Mr. Lorry. “ I quite 
understand it to be a nice question. And yet I think — ” And there 
he shook his head, and stopped. 

“You see,” said Doctor Manette, turning to him after an uneasy 
pause, “ it is very hard to explain, consistently, the innermost workings 
of this poor man’s mind. He once yearned so frightfully for that 
occupation, and it was so welcome when it came ; no doubt it relieved his 
pain so much, by substituting the perplexity of the fingers for the per- 
plexity of the brain, and by substituting, as he became more practiced, 
the ingenuity of the hands, for the ingenuity of the mental torture; 
that he has never been able to bear the thought of putting it quite out of 
his reach. Even now, when I believe he is more hopeful of himself 
than he has ever been, and even speaks of himself with a kind of con- 
fidence, the idea that he might need that old employment, and not find 
it, gives him a sudden sense of terror, like that which one may fancy 
strikes to the heart of a lost child.” 

He looked like his illustration, as he raised his eyes to Mr. Lorry’s 
face. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


196 

“ But may not — mind, I ask for information, as a plodding man 
of business who only deals with such material objects as guineas, shill- 
ings, and bank-notes — may not the retention of the thing involve the 
retention of the idea? If the thing were gone, my dear Manette, might 
not the fear go with it? In short, is it not a concession to the mis- 
giving, to keep the forge?’* 

There was another silence. 

“ You see, too,” said the Doctor, tremulously, “ it is such an old com- 
panion.” 

“I would not keep it,” said Mr. Lorry, shaking his head; for he 
gained in firmness as he saw the Doctor disquieted. “ I would recom- 
mend him to sacrifice it. I only want your authority. I am sure it 
does no good. Come ! Give me your authority, like a dear good man. 
For his daughter’s sake, my dear Manette! ” 

Very strange to see what a struggle there was within him! 

“ In her name, then, let it be done; I sanction it. But, I would not 
take it away while he was present. Let it be removed when he is not 
there; let him miss his old companion after an absence.” 

Mr. Lorry readily engaged for that, and the conference was ended. 
They passed the day in the country, and the Doctor was quite restored. 
On the three following days he remained perfectly well, and on the 
fourteenth day he went away to join Lucie and her husband. The pre- 
caution that had been taken to account for his silence, Mr. Lorry had 
previously explained to him, and he had written to Lucie in accordance 
with it, and she had no suspicions. 

On the night of the day on which he left the house, Mr. Lorry went 
into his room with a chopper, saw, chisel, and hammer, attended by 
Miss Pross carrying a light. There, with closed doors, and in a mys- 
terious and guilty manner, Mr. Lorry hacked the shoemaker’s bench 
to pieces, while Miss Pross held the candle as if she were assisting at 
a murder — for which, indeed, in her grimness, she was no unsuitable 
figure. The burning of the body (previously reduced to pieces con- 
venient for the purpose) was commenced without delay in the kitchen 
fire; and the tools, shoes, and leather, were buried in the garden. So 
wicked do destruction and secrecy appear to honest minds, that Mr. 
Lorry and Miss Pross, while engaged in the commission of their deed 
and in the removal of its traces, almost felt, and almost looked, like 
accomplices in a horrible crime. 


CHAPTER XX 


A PLEA 

W HEN the newly-married pair came home, the first person who 
appeared, to offer his congratulations, was Sydney Carton. 
They had not been at home many hours, when he presented himself. 
He was not improved in habits, or in looks, or in manner; but there 
was a certain rugged air of fidelity about him, which was new to the 
observation of Charles Darnay. 

He watched his opportunity of taking Darney aside into a window, 
and of speaking to him when no one overheard. 

“ Mr. Darnay,” said Carton, “ I wish we might be friends.” 

“ We are already friends, I hope.” 

“ You are good enough to say so, as a fashion of speech; but, I don’t 
mean any fashion of speech. Indeed, when I say I wish we might be 
friends, I scarcely mean quite that, either.” 

Charles Darnay — as was natural — asked him, in all good-humor 
and good-fellowship, what he did mean? 

“ Upon my life,” said Carton, smiling, “ I find that easier to com- 
prehend in my own mind, than to convey to yours. However, let me 
try. You remember a certain famous occasion when I was more drunk 
than — than usual?” 

“ I remember a certain famous occasion when you forced me to con- 
fess that you had been drinking.” 

“ I remember it too. The curse of those occasions is heavy upon 
me, for I always remember them. I hope it may be taken into account 
one day, when all days are at an end for me ! Don’t be alarmed; I am 
not going to preach.” 

“ I am not at all alarmed. Earnestness in you, is anything but alarm- 
ing to me.” 

“ Ah ! ” said Carton, with a careless wave of his hand, as if he waved 
that away. “ On the drunken occasion in question (one of a large num- 
ber, as you know), I was insufferable about liking you, and not liking 
you. I wish you would forget it.” 

“ I forgot it long ago.” 


197 


198 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ Fashion of speech again! But Mr. Darnay, oblivion is not so easy 
to me, as you represent it to be to you. I have by no means forgotten 
it, and a light answer does not help me to forget it.” 

“ If it was a light answer,” returned Darnay, “ I beg your forgive- 
ness for it. I had no other object than to turn a slight thing, which, to 
my surprise, seems to trouble you too much, aside. I declare to you, 
on the faith of a gentleman, that I have long dismissed it from my 
mind. Good Heaven, what was there to dismiss I Have I had nothing 
more important to remember, in the great service you rendered me that 
day? ” 

“ As to the great service,” said Carton, “ I am bound to avow to you, 
when you speak of it in that way, that it was mere professional claptrap. 
I don’t know that I cared what became of you, when I rendered it. — 
Mind! I say when I rendered it; I am speaking of the past.” 

“ You make light of the obligation,” returned Darnay, “ but I will not 
quarrel with your light answer.” 

“ Genuine truth, Mr. Darnay, trust me ! I have gone aside from 
my purpose ; I was speaking about our being friends. Now, you know 
me ; you know I am incapable of all the higher and better flights of men. 
If you doubt it, ask Stryver, and he’ll tell you so.” 

“ I prefer to form my own opinion, without the aid of his.” 

“ Well ! At any rate you know me as a dissolute dog, who has never 
done any good, and never will.” 

“ I don’t know that you ‘ never will.’ ” 

“ But I do, and you must take my word for it. Well! If you could 
endure to have such a worthless fellow, and a fellow of such indifferent 
reputation, coming and going at odd times, I should ask that I might 
be permitted to come and go as a privileged person here; that I might 
be regarded as an useless (and I would add, if it were not for the re- 
semblance I detected between you and me), an unornamental, piece of 
furniture, tolerated for its old service, and taken no notice of. I doubt 
if I should abuse the permission. It is a hundred to one if I should 
avail myself of it four times in a year. It would satisfy me, I dare 
say, to know that I had it.” 

“ Will you try? ” 

“ That is another way of saying that I am placed on the footing I 
have indicated. I thank you, Darnay. I may use that freedom with 
your name? ” 


A PLEA 


199 


“ I think so, Carton, by this time.’’ 

They shook hands upon it, and Sydney turned away. Within a min- 
ute afterwards, he was, to all outward appearance, as unsubstantial as 
ever. 

When he was gone, and in the course of an evening passed with Miss 
Pross, the Doctor, and Mr. Lorry, Charles Darnay made some mention 
of this conversation in general terms, and spoke of Sydney Carton as 
a problem of carelessness and recklessness. He spoke of him, in short, 
not bitterly or meaning to bear hard upon him, but as anybody might 
who saw him as he showed himself. 

He had no idea that this could dwell in the thoughts of his fair young 
wife; but, when he afterwards joined her in their own rooms, he found 
her waiting for him with the old pretty lifting of the forehead strongly 
marked. 

“ We are thoughtful to-night! ” said Darnay, drawing his arm about 
her. 

“ Yes, dearest Charles,” with her hands on his breast, and the inquir- 
ing and attentive expression fixed upon him; “ we are rather thoughtful 
to-night, for we have something on our mind to-night.” 

“What is it, my Lucie?” 

“ Will you promise not to press one question on me, if I beg you not 
to ask it? ” 

“ Will I promise? What will I not promise to my Love?” 

What, indeed, with his hand putting aside the golden hair from 
the cheek, and his other hand against the heart that beat for him! 

“ I think, Charles, poor Mr. Carton deserves more consideration and 
respect than you expressed for him to-night.” 

“ Indeed, my own? Why so? ” 

“ That is what you are not to ask me. But I think — I know — he 
does.” 

“ If you know it, it is enough. What would you have me do, my 
Life?” 

“ I would ask you, dearest, to be very generous with him always, and 
very lenient on his faults when he is not by. I would ask you to believe 
that he has a heart he very, very seldom reveals, and that there are deep 
wounds in it. My dear, I have seen it bleeding. 

“ It is a painful reflection to me,” said Charles Darnay, quite 


200 A TALE OF TWO CITIES 

astounded, “ that I should have done him any wrong. I never thought 
this of him.” 

“ My husband, it is so. I fear he is not to be reclaimed; there is 
scarcely a hope that anything in his character or fortunes is reparable 
now. But, I am sure that he is capable of good things, gentle things, 
even magnanimous things.” 

She looked so beautiful in the purity of her faith in this lost man, that 
her husband could have looked at her as she was for hours. 

“ And, O my dearest Love! ” she urged, clinging nearer to him, lay- 
ing her head upon his breast, and raising her eyes to his, “ remember 
how strong we are in our happiness, and how weak he is in his misery! ” 

The supplication touched him home. “ I will always remember it, 
dear Heart! I will remember it as long as I live.” 

He bent over the golden head, and put the rosy lips to his, and folded 
her in his arms. If one forlorn wanderer then pacing the dark streets, 
could have heard her innocent disclosure, and could have seen the drops 
of pity kissed away by her husband from the soft blue eyes so loving 
of that husband, he might have cried to the night — and the words 
would not have parted from his lips for the first time — 

” God bless her for her sweet compassion! ” 


CHAPTER XXI 


ECHOING FOOTSTEPS 

A WONDERFUL corner for echoes, it has been remarked, that 
corner where the Doctor lived. Ever busily winding the golden 
thread which bound her husband, and her father, and herself, and her 
old directress and companion, in a life of quiet bliss, Lucie sat in the 
still house in the tranquilly resounding corner, listening to the echoing 
footsteps of years. 

At first, there were times, though she was a perfectly happy young 
wife, when her work would slowly fall from her hands, and her eyes 
would be dimmed. For, there was something coming in the echoes, 
something light, afar off, and scarcely audible yet, that stirred her heart 
too much. Fluttering hopes and doubts — hopes, of a love as yet un- 
known to her; doubts, of her remaining upon earth, to enjoy that new 
delight — divided her breast. Among the echoes then, there would 
arise the sound of footsteps at her own early grave; and thoughts of 
the husband who would be left so desolate, and who would mourn for 
her so much, swelled to her eyes, and broke like waves. 

That time passed, and her little Lucie lay on her bosom. Then, 
among the advancing echoes, there was the tread of her tiny feet and 
the sound of her prattling words. Let greater echoes resound as they 
would, the young mother at the cradle side could always hear those com- 
ing. They came, and the shady house was sunny with a child’s laugh, 
and the Divine friend of children, to whom in her trouble she had 
confided hers, seemed to take her child in His arms, as He took the 
child of old, and made it a sacred joy to her. 

Ever busily winding the golden thread that bound them all together, 
weaving the service of her happy influence through the tissue of all their 
lives, and making it predominate nowhere, Lucie heard in the echoes of 
years none but friendly and soothing sounds. Her husband’s step was 
strong and prosperous among them; her father’s firm and equal. Lo, 
Miss Pross, in harness of string, awakening the echoes, as an unruly 

201 


202 A TALE OF TWO CITIES 

charger, whip-corrected, snorting and pawing the earth under the plane- 
tree in the garden ! 

Even when there were sounds of sorrow among the rest, they were 
not harsh nor cruel. Even when golden hair, like her own, lay in a halo 
on a pillow round the worn face of a little boy, and he said, with a 
radiant smile, “ Dear papa and mamma, I am very sorry to leave you 
both, and to leave my pretty sister; but I am called, and I must go! ” 
those were not tears all of agony that wetted his young mother’s cheek, 
as the spirit departed from her embrace that had been entrusted to it. 
Suffer them and forbid them not. They see my Father’s face. O 
Father, blessed words ! 

Thus, the rustling of an Angel’s wings got blended with the other 
echoes, and they were not wholly of earth, but had in them that breath 
of Heaven. Sighs of the winds that blew over a little garden-tomb 
were mingled with them also, and both were audible to Lucie, in a 
hushed murmur — like the breathing of a summer sea asleep upon a 
sandy shore — as the little Lucie, comically studious at the task of the 
morning, or dressing a doll at her mother’s footstool, chattered in the 
tongues of the Two Cities that were blended in her life. 

The echoes rarely answered to the actual tread of Sydney Carton. 
Some half-dozen times a year, at most, he claimed his privilege of com- 
ing in uninvited, and would sit among them through the evening, as he 
had once done often. He never came there heated with wine. And 
one other thing regarding him was whispered in the echoes, which has 
been whispered by all true echoes for ages and ages. 

No man ever really loved a woman, lost her, and knew her with a 
blameless though an unchanged mind, when she was a wife and a mother, 
but her children had a strange sympathy with him — an instinctive deli- 
cacy of pity for him. What fine hidden sensibilities are touched in such 
a case, no echoes tell; but it is so, and it was so here. Carton was the 
first stranger to whom little Lucie held out her chubby arms, and he kept 
his place with her as she grew. The little boy had spoken of him, 
almost at the last. Poor Carton! Kiss him for me! ” 

Mr. Stryver shouldered his way through the law, like some great en- 
gine forcing itself through turbid water, and dragged his useful friend 
in his wake, like a boat towed astern. As the boat so favored is usually 
in a rough plight, and mostly under water, so, Sydney had a swamped 
life of it. But, easy and strong custom, unhappily so much easier and 


ECHOING FOOTSTEPS 


203 


stronger in hmi than any stimulating sense of desert or disgrace, made 
it the life he was to lead; and he no more thought of emerging from his 
state of lion’s jackal, than any real jackal may be supposed to think of 
rising to be a lion. Stryver was rich; had married a florid widow with 
property and three boys, who had nothing particularly shining about 
them but the straight hair of their dumpling heads. 

These three young gentlemen, Mr. Stryver, exuding patronage of the 
most offensive quality from every pore, had walked before him like three 
sheep to the quiet corner in Soho, and had offered as pupils to Lucie’s 
husband, delicately saying, “ Halloa ! here are three lumps of bread-and- 
cheese towards your matrimonial picnic, Darnay ! ” The polite rejec- 
tion of the three lumps of bread-and-cheese had quite bloated Mr. 
Stryver with indignation, which he afterwards turned to account in the 
training of the young gentlemen, by directing them to beware of the 
pride of beggars, like that tutor-fellow. He was also in the habit of 
declaiming to Mrs. Stryver, over his full-bodied wine, on the arts Mrs. 
Darnay had once put in practice to “ catch ” him, and on the diamond- 
cut-diamond arts in himself, madam, which had rendered him ‘‘ not to 
be caught.” Some of his King’s Bench familiars, who were occasion- 
ally parties to the full-bodied wine and the lie, excused him for the 
latter by saying that he had told it so often, that he believed it him- 
self — which is surely such an incorrigible aggravation of an originally 
bad offense, as to justify any such offender’s being carried off to some 
suitably retired spot, and there hanged out of the way. 

These were among the echoes to which Lucie, sometimes pensive, 
sometimes amused and laughing, listened in the echoing corner until her 
little daughter was six years old. How near to her heart the echoes of 
her child’s tread came, and those of her own dear father’s, always ac- 
tive and self-possessed, and those of her dear husband’s, need not be 
told. Nor, how the lightest echo of their united home, directed by 
herself with such a wise and elegant thrift that it was more abundant 
than any waste, was music to her. Nor, how there were echoes all 
about her, sweet in her ears, of the many times her father had told her 
that he found her more devoted to him married (if that could be) than 
single, and of the many times her husband had said to her that no cares 
and duties seemed to divide her love for him or her help to him, and 
asked her “ What is the magic secret, my darling, of your being every- 


204 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


thing to all of us, as if there were only one of us, yet never seeming to 
be hurried, or to have too much to do? ” 

But, there were other echoes, from a distance, that rumbled menac- 
ingly in the corner all through this space of time. And it was now, 
about little Lucie’s sixth birthday, that they began to have an awful 
sound, as of a great storm in France with a dreadful sea rising. 

On a night in mid-July, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine, 
Mr. Lorry came in late, from Tellson’s, and sat himself down by Lucie 
and her husband in the dark window. It was a hot, wild night, and they 
were all three reminded of the old Sunday night when they had looked 
at the lightning from the same place. 

“ I began to think,” said Mr. Lorry, pushing his brown wig back, 
“ that I should have to pass the night at Tellson’s. We have been so 
full of business all day, that we have not known what to do first, or 
which way to turn. There is such an uneasiness in Paris, that we have 
actually a run of confidence upon us ! Our customers over there, seem 
not to be able to confide their property to us fast enough. There is 
positively a mania among some of them for sending it to England.” 

” That has a bad look,” said Darnay. 

“A bad look, you say, my dear Darnay? Yes, but we don’t know 
what reason there is in it. People are so unreasonable ! Some of us 
at Tellson’s are getting old, and we really can’t be troubled out of the 
ordinary course without due occasion.” 

“ Still,” said Darnay, “ you know how gloomy and threatening the 
sky is.” 

“ I know that, to be sure,” assented Mr. Lorry, trying to persuade 
himself that his sweet temper was soured, and that he grumbled, “ but 
I am determined to be peevish after my long day’s botheration. Where 
is Manette? ” 

“ Here he is,” said the Doctor, entering the dark room at the moment. 

“ I am quite glad you are at home; for these hurries and forebodings 
by which I have been surrounded all day long, have made me nervous 
without reason. You are not going out, I hope ? ” 

“ No ; I am going to play backgammon with you, if you like,” said the 
Doctor. 

“I don’t think I do like, if I may speak my mind. I am not fit to be 
pitted against you to-night. Is the tea-board still there, Lucie? I 
can’t see,” 


ECHOING FOOTSTEPS 


205 


“ Of course, it has been kept for you.” 

“ Thank ye, my dear. The precious child is safe in bed?” 

“ And sleeping soundly.” 

“ That’s right; all safe and well ! I don’t know why anything should 
be otherwise than safe and well here, thank God; but I have been so put 
out all day, and I am not as young as I was I My tea, my dear I Thank 
ye. Now, come and take your place in the circle, and let us sit quiet, and 
hear the echoes about which you have your theory.” 

“ Not a theory; it was a fancy.” 

“ A fancy, then, my wise pet,” said Mr. Lorry, patting her hand. 
“They are very numerous and very loud, are they not? Only hear 
them!” 

Headlong, mad, and dangerous footsteps to force their way into any- 
body’s life, footsteps not easily made clean again if once stained red, the 
footsteps raging in Saint Antoine afar off, as the little circle sat in the 
dark London window. 

Saint Antoine had been, that morning, a vast dusky mass of scare- 
crows heaving to and fro, with frequent gleams of light above the bil- 
lowy heads, where steel blades and bayonets shone in the sun. A 
tremendous roar arose from the throat of Saint Antoine, and a forest 
of naked arms struggled in the air like shriveled branches of trees in a 
winter wind; all the fingers convulsively clutching at every weapon or 
semblance of a weapon that was thrown up from the depths below, no 
matter how far off. 

Who gave them out, whence they last came, where they began, 
through what agency they crookedly quivered and jerked, scores at a 
time, over the heads of the crowd, like a kind of lightning, no eye in 
the throng could have told; but, muskets were being distributed — so 
were cartridges, powder, and ball, bars of iron and wood, knives, axes, 
pikes, every weapon that distracted ingenuity could discover or devise. 
People who could lay hold of nothing else, set themselves with bleeding 
hands to force stones and bricks out of their places in walls. Every 
pulse and heart in Saint Antoine was on high-fever strain and at high- 
fever heat. Every living creature there held life as of no account, and 
was demented with a passionate readiness to sacrifice it. 

As a whirlpool of boiling waters has a center point, so, all this raging 
circled round Dcfarge’s wine-shop, and every human drop in the cal- 


2o6 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


dron had a tendency to be sucked towards the vortex where Defarge 
himself, already begrimed with gunpowder and sweat, issued orders, 
issued arms, thrust this man back, dragged this man forward, disarmed 
one to arm another, labored and strove in the thickest of the uproar. 

“ Keep near to me, Jacques Three,” cried Defarge; “ and do you, 
Jacques One and Two, separate and put yourselves at the head of as 
many of these patriots as you can. Where is my wife? ” 

“ Eh, well ! Here you see me ! ” said madame, composed as ever, 
but not knitting to-day. Madame’s resolute right hand was occupied 
with an ax, in place of the usual softer implements, and in her girdle 
were a pistol and a cruel knife. 

“ Where do you go, my wife? ” 

“ I go,” said madame, “ with you at present. You shall see me at 
the head of women, by and by.” 

“ Come, then ! ” cried Defarge, in a resounding voice. “ Patriots and 
friends, we are ready I The Bastille! ” 

With a roar that sounded as if all the breath in France had been 
shaped into the detested word, the living* sea rose, wave on wave, depth 
on depth, and overflowed the city to that point. Alarm-bells ringing, 
drums beating, the sea raging and thundering on its new beach, the 
attack begun. 

Deep ditches, double drawbridge, massive stone walls, eight great 
towers, cannon, muskets, fire and smoke. Through the fire and through 
the smoke — in the fire and in the smoke, for the sea cast him up 
against a cannon, and on the instant he became a cannonier — Defarge 
of the wine-shop worked like a manful soldier, two fierce hours. 

Deep ditch, single drawbridge, massive stone walls, eight great 
towers, cannon, muskets, fire and smoke. One drawbridge down I 
“Work, comrades, all, work! Work, Jacques One, Jacques Two, 
Jacques One Thousand, Jacques Two Thousand, Jacques Five-and- 
Twenty Thousand; in the name of all the Angels or the Devils — which 
you prefer — work! ” Thus Defarge of the wine-shop, still at his gun, 
which had long grown hot. 

“ To me, women! ” cried madame his wife. “ What! We can kill 
as well as the men when the place is taken ! ” And to her, with a shrill 
thirsty cry, trooping women variously armed, but all armed alike in 
hunger and revenge. 

Cannon, muskets, fire and smoke ; but, still the deep ditch, the single 


ECHOING FOOTSTEPS 


207 


drawbridge, the massive stone walls, and the eight great towers. Slight 
displacements of the raging sea, made by the falling wounded. Flash- 
ing weapons, blazing torches, smoking wagon-loads of wet straw, hard 
work at neighboring barricades in all directions, shrieks, volleys, execra- 
tions, bravery without stint, boom smash and rattle, and the furious 
sounding of the living sea ; but, still the deep ditch, and the single draw- 
bridge, and the massive stone walls, and the eight great towers, and still 
Defarge of the wine-shop at his gun, grown doubly hot by the service 
of four fierce hours. 

A white flag from within the fortress, and a parley — this dimly 
perceptible through the raging storm, nothing audible in it. Suddenly 
the sea rose immeasurably wider and higher, and swept Defarge of the 
wine-shop over the lowered drawbridge, past the massive stone outer 
walls, in among tl\e eight great towers surrendered ! 

So resistless was the force of the ocean bearing him on, that even to 
draw his breath or turn his head was as impracticable as if he had been 
struggling in the surf at the South Sea, until he was landed in the outer 
court-yard of the Bastille. There, against an angle of a wall, he made 
a struggle to look about him. Jacques Three was nearly at his side; 
Madame Defarge, still heading some of her women, was visible in the 
inner distance, and her knife was in her hand. Everywhere was tumult, 
exultation, deafening and maniacal bewilderment, astounding noise, yet 
furious dumb-show. 

“ The Prisoners ! ” 

“ The Records!” 

“ The secret cells I ” 

“ The instruments of torture! ” 

“ The Prisoners ! ” 

Of all these cries, and ten thousand incoherencies, “ The Prisoners! ” 
was the cry most taken up by the sea that rushed in, as if there were an 
eternity of people, as well as of time and space. When the foremost 
billows rolled past, bearing the prison officers with them, and threaten- 
ing them all with instant death if any secret nook remained undisclosed, 
Defarge laid his strong hand on the breast of one of these men — a man 
with a gray hea.d, who had a lighted torch in his hand separated him 
from the rest, and got him between himself and the wall. 

“ Show me the North Tower! ” said Defarge. “ Quick! ” 


2o8 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ I will faithfully,’’ replied the man, “ if you will come with me. 
But there is no one there.” 

“ What is the meaning of One Hundred and Five, North Tower? ” 
asked Defarge. “ Quick! ” 

“ The meaning, monsieur? ” 

“ Does it mean a captive, or a place of captivity? Or do you mean 
that I shall strike you dead? ” 

“ Kill him I ” croaked Jacques Three, who had come close up. 

“ Monsieur, it is a cell.” 

“ Show it me 1 ” 

“ Pass this way, then.” 

Jacques Three, with his usual craving on him, and evidently disap- 
pointed by the dialogue taking a turn that did not seem to promise blood- 
shed, held by Defarge’s arm as he held by the turnkey’s. Their three 
heads had been close together during this brief discourse, and it had been 
as much as they could do to hear one another, even then; so tremendous 
was the noise of the living ocean, in its irruption into the Fortress, and 
its inundation of the courts and passages and staircases. All around 
outside, too, it beat the walls with a deep, hoarse roar, from which, 
occasionally, some partial shouts of tumult broke and leaped into the 
air like spray. 

Through gloomy vaults where the light of day had never shone, past 
hideous doors of dark dens and cages, down cavernous flights of steps, 
and again up steep rugged ascents of stone and brick, more like dry 
waterfalls than staircases, Defarge, the turnkey, and Jacques Three, 
linked hand and arm, went with all the speed they could make. Here 
and there, especially at first, the inundation started on them and swept 
by; but when they had done descending, and were winding and climbing 
up a tower, they were alone. Hemmed in here by the massive thick- 
ness of walls and arches, the storm within the fortress and without was 
only audible to them in a dull, subdued way, as if the noise out of which 
they had come had almost destroyed their sense of hearing. 

The turnkey stopped at a low door, put a key in a clashing lock, swung 
the door slowly open, and said, as they all bent their heads and passed in. 

” One hundred and five. North Tower I ” 

There was a small, heavily-grated, unglazed window high in the wall, 
with a stone screen before it, so that the sky could be only seen by stoop- 
ing low and looking up. There was a small chimney, heavily barred 


ECHOING FOOTSTEPS 


209 


across, a few feet within. There was a heap of old feathery wood-ashes 
on the hearth. There was a stool, and table, and a straw bed. There 
were the four blackened walls, and a rusted iron ring in one of them. 

“ Pass that torch slowly along these walls, that I may see them,” said 
Defarge to the turnkey. 

The man obeyed, and Defarge followed the light closely with his eyes. 

“ Stop ! — Look here, Jacques I ” 

“ A. M. ! ” croaked Jacques Three, as he read greedily. 

“ Alexandre Manette,” said Defarge in his ear, following the letters 
with his swart forefinger, deeply engrained with gunpowder. “ And 
here he wrote ‘ a poor physician.’ And it was he, without doubt, who 
scratched a calendar on this stone. What is that in your hand? A 
crowbar? Give it me ! ” 

He had still the linstock of his gun in his own hand. He made a 
sudden exchange of the two instruments, and turning on the worm-eaten 
stool and table, beat them to pieces in a few blows. 

“ Hold the light higher I ” he said, wrathfully, to the turnkey. 
“ Look among those fragments with care, Jacques. And see! Here is 
my knife,” throwing it to him; “rip open that bed, and search the 
straw. Hold the light higher, you ! ” 

With a menacing look at the turnkey he crawled upon the hearth, and, 
peering up the chimney, struck and pried at its sides with the crowbar, 
and worked at the iron grating across it. In a few minutes, some 
mortar and dust came dropping down, which he averted his face to 
avoid; and in it, and in the old wood-ashes, and in a crevice in the 
chimney into which his weapon had slipped or wrought itself, he groped 
with a cautious touch. 

“ Nothing in the wood, and nothing in the straw, Jacques? ” 

“ Nothing.” 

“ Let us collect them together, in the middle of the cell. So I Light 
them, you 1 ” 

The turnkey fired the little pile, which blazed high and hot. Stooping 
again to come out at the low-arched door, they left it burning, and re- 
traced their way to the court-yard; seeming to recover their sense of 
hearing as they came down, until they were in the raging flood once 
more. 

They found it surging and tossing, in quest of Defarge himself. 
Saint Antoine was clamorous to have its wine-shop keeper foremost in 


210 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


the guard upon the governor who had defended the Bastille and shot 
the people. Otherwise, the governor would not be marched to the 
Hotel de Ville for judgment. Otherwise, the governor would escape, 
and the people’s blood (suddenly of some value, after many years of 
worthlessness) be unavenged. 

In the howling universe of passion and contention that seemed to 
encompass this grim old officer conspicuous in his gray coat and red deco- 
ration, there was but one quite steady figure, and that was a woman’s. 
“ See, there is my husband ! ” she cried, pointing him out. “See De- 
farge ! ” She stood immovable close to the grim old officer, and re- 
mained immovable close to him; remained immovable close to him 
through the streets, as Defarge and the rest bore him along; remained 
immovable close to him when he was got near his destination, and began 
to be struck at from behind; remained immovable close to him when the 
long-gathering rain of stabs and blows fell heavy; was so close to him 
when he dropped dead under it, that, suddenly animated, she put her 
foot upon his neck, and with her cruel knife — long ready — hewed off 
his head. 

The hour was come, when Saint Antoine was to execute his horrible 
idea of hoisting up men for lamps to show what he could be and do. 
Saint Antoine’s blood was up, and the blood of tyranny and domination 
by the iron hand was down — down on the steps of the Hotel de Ville 
where the governor’s body lay — down on the sole of the shoe of Ma- 
dame Defarge where she had trodden on the body to steady it for 
mutilation. “ Lower the lamp yonder ! ” cried Saint Antoine, after 
glaring round for a new means of death; “ here is one of his soldiers 
to be left on guard ! ” The swinging sentinel was posted, and the sea 
rushed on. 

The sea of black and threatening waters, and of destructive upheav- 
ing of wave against wave, whose depths were yet unfathomed and whose 
forces were yet unknown. The remorseless sea of turbulently swaying 
shapes, voices of vengeance, and faces hardened in the furnaces of suf- 
fering until the touch of pity could make no mark on them. 

But, in the ocean of faces where every fierce and furious expression 
was in vivid life, there were two groups of faces — each seven in num- 
ber — so fixedly contrasting with the rest, that never did sea roll which 
bore more memorable wrecks with it. Seven faces of prisoners, sud- 
denly released by the storm that had burst their tomb, were carried high 


ECHOING FOOTSTEPS 


211 


overhead; all scared, all lost, all wondering and amazed, as If the Last 
Day were come, and those who rejoiced around them were lost spirits. 
Other seven faces there were carried higher, seven dead faces, whose 
drooping eyelids and half-seen eyes awaited the Last Day. Impassive 
faces, yet with a suspended — not an abolished — expression on them; 
faces, rather, in a fearful pause, as having yet to raise the dropped lids 
of the eyes, and bear witness with the bloodless lips, “ Thou didst it! ” 
Seven prisoners released, seven gory heads on pikes, the keys of the 
accursed fortress of the eight strong towers, some discovered letters and 
other memorials of prisoners of old time, long dead of broken hearts, — 
such, and such-like, the loudly echoing footsteps of Saint Antoine escort 
through the Paris streets in mid-July, one thousand seven hundred and 
eighty-nine. Now, Heaven defeat the fancy of Lucie Darnay, and keep 
these feet far out of her life! For, they are headlong, mad, and dan- 
gerous; and In the years so long after the breaking of the cask at De- 
farge’s wine-shop door, they are not easily purified when once stained 
red. 


CHAPTER XXII 


THE SEA STILL RISES 

H aggard Saint Antoine had had only one exultant week, in which 
to soften his modicum of hard and bitter bread to such extent as 
he could, with the relish of fraternal embraces and congratulations, when 
Madame Defarge sat at her counter, as usual, presiding over the cus- 
tomers. Madame Defarge wore no rose in her head, for the great 
brotherhood of Spies had become, even in one short week, extremely 
chary of trusting themselves to the saint’s mercies. The lamps across 
his streets had a portentously elastic swing with them. 

Madame Defarge, with her arms folded, sat in the morning light and 
heat, contemplating the wine-shop and the street. In both, there were 
several knots of loungers, squalid and miserable, but now with a mani- 
fest sense of power enthroned on their distress. The raggedest night- 
cap, awry on the wretchedest head, had this crooked significance in it: 
“ I know how hard it has grown for me, the wearer of this, to support 
life in myself; but do you know how easy it has grown for me, the wearer 
of this, to destroy life in you? ” Every lean bare arm, that had been 
without work before, had this work always ready for it now, that it 
could strike. The fingers of the knitting women were vicious, with the 
experience that they could tear. There was a change in the appearance 
of Saint Antoine; the image had been hammering into this for hundreds 
of years, and the last finishing blows had told mightily on the expression. 

Madame Defarge sat observing it, with such suppressed approval as 
was to be desired in the leader of the Saint Antoine women. One of 
her sisterhood knitted beside her. The short, rather plump wife of a 
starved grocer, and the mother of two children withal, this lieutenant 
had already earned the complimentary name of The Vengeance. 

“ Hark! ” said The Vengeance. “ Listen, then! Who comes? ” 

As if a train of powder laid from the outermost bound of the Saint 
Antoine Quarter to the wine-shop door, had been suddenly fired, a fast- 
spreading murmur came rushing along. 

“ It is Defarge,” said madame. “ Silence, patriots 1 ” 

212 


THE SEA STILL RISES 213 

Defarge came in breathless, pulled off a red cap he wore, and looked 
around him. “ Listen, everywhere ! ” said madame again. “ Listen to 
him ! Defarge stood, panting, against a background of eager eyes and 
open mouths, formed outside the door; all those within the wine-shop 
had sprung to their feet. 

“ Say then, my husband. What is it?” 

“ News from the other world ! ” 

“How then?” cried madame, contemptuously. “The other 
world? ” 

“ Does everybody here recall old Foulon, who told the famished 
people that they might eat grass, and who died, and went to Hell? ” 

“ Everybody! ” from all throats. 

“ The news is of him. He is among us ! ” 

“ Among us 1 ” from the universal throat again. “ And dead? ” 

“Not dead! He feared us so much — and with reason — that he 
caused himself to be represented as dead, and had a grand mock-funeral. 
But they have found him alive, hiding in the country, and have brought 
him in. I have seen him but now, on his way to the Hotel de Ville, a 
prisoner. I have said he had reason to fear us. Say all! Had he 
reason? ” 

Wretched old sinner of more than threescore years and ten, if he had 
never known it yet, he would have known it in his heart of hearts if he 
could have heard the answering cry. 

A moment of profound silence followed. Defarge and his wife 
looked steadfastly at one another. The Vengeance stooped, and the 
jar of a drum was heard as she moved it at her feet behind the counter. 

“ Patriots! ” said Defarge, in a determined voice, “ are we ready? ” 

Instantly Madame Defarge’s knife was in her girdle; the drum was 
beating in the streets, as if it and a drummer had flown together by 
magic; and The Vengeance, uttering terrific shrieks, and flinging her 
arms about her head like all the forty Furies at once, was tearing from 
house to house, rousing the women. 

The men were terrible, in the bloody-minded anger with which they 
looked from windows, caught up what arms they had, and came pouring 
down into the streets ; but, the women were a sight to chill the boldest. 
From such household occupations as their bare poverty yielded, from 
their children, from their aged and their sick crouching on the bare 
ground famished and naked, they ran out with streaming hair, urging 


214 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


one another, and themselves, to madness with the wildest cries and 
actions. Villain Foulon taken, my sister ! Old Foulon taken, my 
mother! Miscreant Foulon taken, my daughter! Then, a score of 
others ran into the midst of these, beating their breasts, tearing their 
hair, and screaming, Foulon alive! Foulon who told the starving peo- 
ple they might eat grass! Foulon who told my old father that he 
might eat grass, when I had no bread to give him! Foulon who told 
my baby it might suck grass, when these breasts were dry with want! 
O Mother of God, this Foulon! O Heaven, our suffering! Hear me, 
my dead baby and my withered father: I swear on my knees, on these 
stones, to avenge you on Foulon! Husbands, and brothers, and young 
men. Give us the blood of Foulon, Give us the head of Foulon, Give us 
the heart of Foulon, Give us the body and soul of Foulon. Rend Foulon 
to pieces, and dig him into the ground, that grass may grow from him ! 
With these cries, numbers of the women, lashed into blind frenzy, 
whirled about, striking and tearing at their 'own friends until they 
dropped into a passionate swoon, and were only saved by the men be- 
longing to them from being trampled under foot. 

Nevertheless, not a moment was lost; not a moment! This Foulon 
was at the Hotel de Ville, and might be loosed. Never, if Saint An- 
toine knew his own sufferings, insults, and wrongs! i\rmed men and 
women flocked out of the Quarter so fast, and drew even these last dregs 
after them with such a force of suction, that within a quarter of an hour 
there was not a human creature in Saint Antoine’s bosom but a few old 
crones and the wailing children. 

No. They were all by that time choking the Hall of Examination 
where this old man, ugly and wicked, was, and overflowing into the 
adjacent open space and streets. The Defarges, husband and wife. The 
Vengeance, and Jacques Three, were in the first press, and at no great 
distance from him in the Hall. 

“ See ! ” cried madame, pointing with her knife. “ See the old villain 
bound with ropes. That was well done to tie a bunch of grass upon his 
back. Ha, ha! That was well done. Let him eat it now! ” Ma- 
dame put her knife under her arm, and clapped her hands as at a play. 

The people immediately behind Madame Defarge, explaining the 
cause of her satisfaction to those behind them, and those again explain- 
ing to others, and those to others, the neighboring streets resounded 
with the clapping of hands. Similarly, during two or three hours of 



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THE SEA STILL RISES 215 

drawl, and the winnowing of many bushels of words, Madame Defarge’s 
frequent expressions of impatience were taken up, with marvelous quick- 
ness, at a distance, the more readily, because certain men who had by 
some wonderful exercise of agility climbed up the external architecture 
to look in from the windows, knew Madame Defarge well, and acted as 
a telegraph between her and the crowd outside the building. 

At length the sun rose so high that it struck a kindly ray as of hope or 
protection, directly down upon the old prisoner’s head. The favor was 
too much to bear; in an instant the barrier of dust and chaff that had 
stood surprisingly long, went to the winds, and Saint Antoine had got 
him ! 

It was known directly, to the furthest confines of the crowd. Defarge 
had but sprung over a railing and a table, and folded the miserable 
wretch in a deadly embrace — Madame Defarge had but followed and 
turned her hand in one of the ropes with which he was tied — The Ven- 
geance and Jacques Three were not yet up with them, and the men at 
the windows had not yet swooped into the Hall, like birds of prey from 
their high perches — when the cry seemed to go up, all over the city, 
“ Bring him out I Bring him to the lamp ! ” 

Down and up, and head foremost on the steps of the building; now, 
on his knees; now, on his feet; now, on his back; dragged, and struck at, 
and stifled by the bunches of grass and straw that were thrust into his 
face by hundreds of hands; torn, bruised, panting, bleeding, yet always 
entreating and beseeching for mercy; now full of vehement agony of 
action, with a small clear space about him as the people drew one an- 
other back that they might see ; now, a log of dead wood drawn through 
a forest of legs; he was hauled to the nearest street corner where one of 
the fatal lamps swung, and there Madame Defarge let him go — as a 
cat might have done to a mouse — and silently and composedly looked 
at him while they made ready, and while he besought her; the women 
passionately screeching at him all the time, and the men sternly calling 
out to have him killed with grass in his mouth. Once, he went aloft, 
and the rope broke, and they caught him shrieking; twice, he went aloft, 
and the rope broke, and they caught him shrieking; then, the rope was 
merciful, and held him, and his head was soon upon a pike, with grass 
enough In the mouth for all Saint Antoine to dance at the sight of. 

Nor was this the end of the day’s bad work, for Saint Antoine so 
shouted and danced his ^ngry blood up, that it boiled again, on hearing 


2i6 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


when the day closed in that the son-in-law of the dispatched, another of 
the people’s enemies and insulters, was coming into Paris under a guard 
five hundred strong, in cavalry alone. Saint Antoine wrote his crimes 
on flaring sheets of paper, seized him — would have torn him out of the 
breast of an army to bear Foulon company — set his head and heart on 
pikes, and carried the three spoils of the day, in wolf-procession through 
the streets. 

Not before dark night did the men and women come back to the chil- 
dren, wailing and breadless. Then, the miserable bakers’ shops were 
beset by long files of them, patiently waiting to buy bad bread; and while 
they waited with stomachs faint and empty, they beguiled the time by 
embracing one another on the triumphs of the day, and achieving them 
again in gossip. Gradually, these strings of ragged people shortened 
and frayed away; and then poor lights began to shine in high windows, 
and slender fires were made in the streets at which neighbors cooked in 
common, afterwards supping at their doors. 

Scanty and insufficient suppers those, and innocent of meat, as of most 
other sauce to wretched bread. Yet, human fellowship infused some 
nourishment into the flinty viands, and struck some sparks of cheerful- 
ness out of them. Fathers and mothers who had had their full share 
in the worst of the day, played gently with their meager children; and 
lovers, with such a world around them and before them, loved and 
hoped. 

It was almost morning, when Defarge’s wine-shop parted with its last 
knot of customers, and Monsieur Defarge said to madame his wife, in 
husky tones, while fastening the door: 

“ At last it is come, my dear ! ” 

“ Eh well ! ” returned madame. “ Almost.” 

Saint Antoine slept, the Defarges slept; even The Vengeance slept 
with her starved grocer, and the drum was at rest. The drum’s was 
the only voice in Saint Antoine that blood and hurry had not changed. 
The Vengeance, as custodian of the drum, could have wakened him up 
and had the same speech out of him as before the Bastille fell, or old 
Foulon was seized; not so with the hoarse tones of the men and women 
in Saint Antoine’s bosom. 


CHAPTER XXril 

FIRE RISES 

T here was a change on the village where the fountain fell, and 
where the mender of roads went forth daily to hammer out of 
the stones on the highway such morsels of bread as might serve for 
patches to hold his poor ignorant soul and his poor reduced body to- 
gether. The prison on the crag was not so dominant as of yore ; there 
were soldiers to guard it, but not many; there were officers to guard the 
soldiers, but not one of them knew what his men would do — beyond 
this : that it would probably not be what he was ordered. 

Far and wide lay a ruined country, yielding nothing but desolation. 
Every green leaf, every blade of grass and blade of grain, was as shriv- 
eled and poor as the miserable people. Everything was bowed down, 
dejected, oppressed, and broken. Habitations, fences, domesticated 
animals, men, women, children, and the soil that bore them — all worn 
out. 

Monseigneur (often a most worthy individual gentleman) was a na- 
tional blessing, gave a chivalrous tone to things, was a polite example of 
luxurious and shining life, and a great deal more to equal purpose; 
nevertheless. Monseigneur as a class had, somehow or other, brought 
things to this. Strange that Creation, designed expressly for Monsei- 
gneur, should be so soon wrung dry and squeezed out! There must be 
something short-sighted in the Eternal arrangements, surely! Thus it 
was, however; and the last drop of blood having been extracted from 
the flints, and the last screw of the rack having been turned so often that 
its purchase crumbled, and it now turned and turned with nothing to 
bite. Monseigneur began to run away from a phenomenon so low and 
unaccountable. 

But, this was not the change on the village, and on many a village like 
it. For scores of years gone by. Monseigneur had squeezed it and 
wrung it, and had seldom graced it with his presence except for the 
pleasures of the chase — now, found in hunting the people ; now, found 
in hunting the beasts, for whose preservation Monseigneur made edify- 

217 


2i8 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


ing spaces of barbarous and barren wilderness. No. The change con- 
sisted in the appearance of strange faces of low caste, rather than in 
the disappearance of the high-caste, chiseled, and otherwise beatified 
and beatifying features of Monseigneur. 

For, in these times, as the mender of roads worked, solitary, in the 
dust, not often troubling himself to reflect that dust he was and to dust 
he must return, being for the most part too much occupied in thinking 
how little he had for supper and how much more he would eat if he 
had it — in these times, as he raised his eyes from his lonely labor, and 
viewed the prospect, he would see some rough figure approaching on 
foot, the like of which was once a rarity in those parts, but was now a 
frequent presence. As it advanced, the mender of roads would discern 
without surprise, that it was a shaggy-haired man, of almost barbarian 
aspect, tall, in wooden shoes that were clumsy even to the eyes of a 
mender of roads, grim, rough, swart, steeped in the mud and dust of 
many highways, dank with the marshy moisture of many low grounds, 
sprinkled with the thorns and leaves and moss of many by-ways through 
woods. 

Such a man came upon him, like a ghost, at noon in the July weather, 
as he sat on his heap of stones under a bank, taking such shelter as he 
could get from a shower of hail. 

The man looked at him, looked at the village in the hollow, at the 
mill, and at the prison on the crag. When he had identified these ob- 
jects in what benighted mind he had, he said, in a dialect that was just 
intelligible : 

“ How goes it, Jacques? ” 

“ All well, Jacques.” 

“ Touch then!” 

They joined hands, and the man sat down on the heap of stones. 

“No dinner?” 

“ Nothing but supper now,” said the mender of roads, with a hungry 
face. 

“ It is the fashion,” growled the man. “ I meet no dinner any- 
where.” 

He took out a blackened pipe, filled it, lighted it with flint and steel, 
pulled at it until it was in a bright glow; then, suddenly held it from 
him and dropped something into it from between his finger and thumb, 
that blazed and went out in a puff of smoke. 


FIRE RISES 2i() 

Touch then.” It was the turn of the mender of roads to say it this 
time after observing these operations. They again joined hands. 

To-night? ” said the mender of roads. 

“ To-night,” said the man, putting the pipe in his mouth. 

“ Where? ” 

“ Here.” 

He and the mender of roads sat on the heap of stones looking silently 
at one another, with the hail driving in between them like a pigmy 
charge of bayonets, until the sky began to clear over the village. 

“ Show me ! ” said the traveler then, moving to the brow of the hill. 

“ See ! ” returned the mender of roads, with extended finger. “ You 
go down here, and straight through the street, and past the fountain — ” 

“To the Devil with all that! ” interrupted the other, rolling his eye 
over the landscape. “ I go through no streets and past no fountains. 
Well?” 

“Well! About two leagues beyond the summit of that hill above 
the village.” 

“ Good. When do you cease to work? ” 

“ At sunset.” 

“Will you wake me, before departing? I have walked two nights 
without resting. Let me finish my pipe, and 1 shall sleep like a child. 
Will you wake me? ” 

“ Surely.” 

The wayfarer smoked his pipe out, put it in his breast, slipped off his 
great wooden shoes, and lay down on his back on the heap of stones. 
He was fast asleep directly. 

As the road-mender plied his dusty labor, and the hail-clouds, rolling 
away, revealed bright bars and streaks of sky which were responded to 
by silver gleams upon the landscape, the little man (who wore a red 
cap now, in place of his blue one) seemed fascinated by the figure on 
the heap of stones. His eyes were so often turned towards it, that he 
used his tools mechanically, and, one would have said, to very poor 
account. The bronze face, the shaggy black hair and beard, the coarse 
woolen red cap, the rough medley dress of homespun and hairy skins 
of beasts, the powerful frame attenuated by spare living, and the sullen 
and desperate compression of the lips in sleep, inspired the mender of 
roads with awe. The traveler had traveled far, and his feet were foot- 
sore, and his ankles chafed and bleeding; his great shoes, stuffed with 


220 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


ieaves and grass, had been heavy to drag over the many long leagues, 
and his clothes were chafed into holes, as he himself was into sores. 
Stooping down beside him, the road-mender tried to get a peep at secret 
weapons in his breast or where not; but, in vain, for he slept with his 
arms crossed upon him, and set as resolutely as his lips. Fortified towns 
with their stockades, guard-houses, gates, trenches, and drawbridges, 
seemed to the mender of roads, to be so much air as against this figure. 
And when he lifted his eyes from it to the horizon and looked around, 
he saw in his small fancy similar figures, stopped by no obstacle, tending 
to centers all over France. 

The man slept on, indifferent to showers of hail and intervals of 
brightness, to sunshine on his face and shadow, to the pattering lumps 
of dull ice on his body and the diamonds into which the sun changed 
them, until the sun was low in the west, and the sky was glowing. Then, 
the mender of roads, having got his tools together and all things ready 
to go down into the village, roused him. 

“ Good! ” said the sleeper, rising on his elbow. “ Two leagues be- 
yond the summit of the hill? ” 

“ About.” 

“About? Good!” 

The mender of roads went home, with the dust going on before him 
according to the set of the wind, and was soon at the fountain, squeezing 
himself in among the lean kine brought there to drink, and appearing 
even to whisper to them in his whispering to all the village. When the 
village had taken its poor supper, it did not creep to bed, as it usually 
did, but came out of doors again, and remained there. A curious con- 
tagion of whispering was upon it, and also, when it gathered together 
at the fountain in the dark, another curious contagion of looking expect- 
antly at the sky in one direction only. Monsieur Gabelle, chief func- 
tionary of the place, became uneasy; went out on his house-top alone, 
and looked in that direction too; glanced down from behind his chim- 
neys at the darkening faces by the fountain below, and sent word to the 
sacristan who kept the keys of the church, that there might be need to 
ring the tocsin by and by. 

The night deepened. The trees environing the old chateau, keeping 
its solitary state apart, moved in a rising wind, as though they threat- 
ened the pile of building massive and dark in the gloom. Up the two 
terrace flights of steps the rain ran wildly, and beat at the great door, 


FIRE RISES 


221 


like a swift messenger rousing those within; uneasy rushes of wind went 
through the hall, among the old spears and knives, and passed lament- 
ing up the stairs, and shook the curtains of the bed where the last Mar- 
quis had slept. East, West, North, and South, through the woods, four 
heavy-treading, unkempt figures crushed the high grass and cracked the 
branches, striding on cautiously to come together in the court-yard. 
Four lights broke out there, and moved away in different directions, and 
all was black again. 

But, not for long. Presently, the chateau began to make itself 
strangely visible by some light of its own, as though it were growing 
luminous. Then, a flickering streak played behind the architecture of 
the front, picking out transparent places, and showing where balus- 
trades, arches, and windows were. Then it soared higher, and grew 
broader and brighter. Soon, from a score of the great windows, flames 
burst forth, and the stone faces awakened, stared out of fire. 

A faint murmur arose about the house from the few people who were 
left there, and there was a saddling of a horse and riding away. There 
was spurring and splashing through the darkness, and bridle was drawn 
in the space by the village fountain, and the horse in a foam stood at 
Monsieur Gabelle’s door. “ Help, Gabelle ! Help, every one ! ” The 
tocsin rang impatiently, but other help (if that were any) there was 
none. The mender of roads, and two hundred and fifty particular 
friends, stood with folded arms at the fountain, looking at the pillar of 
fire in the sky. “ It must be forty feet high,” said they, grimly; and 
never moved. 

The rider from the chateau, and the horse in a foam, clattered away 
through the village, and galloped up the stony steep, to the prison on the 
crag. At the gate, a group of officers were looking at the fire ; removed 
from them, a group of soldiers. “ Help, gentlemen-officers ! The cha- 
teau is on fire; valuable objects may be saved from the flames by timely 
aid! Help, help!” The officers looked towards the soldiers, who 
looked at the fire ; gave no orders ; and answered, with shrugs and biting 
of lips, “ It must burn.” 

As the rider rattled down the hill again and through the street, the 
village was illuminating. The mender of roads, and the two hundred 
and fifty particular friends, inspired as one man and woman by the idea 
of lighting up, had darted into their houses, and were putting candles in 
every dull little pane of glass. The general scarcity of everything, occa- 


222 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


sioned candles to be borrowed in a rather peremptory manner of Mon- 
sieur Gabelle ; and in a moment of reluctance and hesitation on that func- 
tionary’s part, the mender of roads, once so submissive to authority, had 
remarked that carriages were good to make bonfires with, and that post- 
horses would roast. 

The chateau was left to itself to flame and burn. In the roaring and 
raging of the conflagration, a red-hot wind, driving straight from the 
infernal regions, seemed to be blowing the edifice away. With the rising 
and falling of the blaze, the stone faces showed as if they were in tor- 
ment. When great masses of stone and timber fell, the face with the 
two dints in the nose became obscured; anon struggled out of the smoke 
again, as if it were the face of the cruel Marquis, burning at the stake 
and contending with the fire. 

The chateau burned; the nearest trees, laid hold of by the fire, 
scorched and shriveled; trees at a distance, fired by the four fierce figures, 
begirt the blazing edifice with a new forest of smoke. Molten lead and 
iron boiled in the marble basin of the fountain; the water ran dry; the 
extinguisher tops of the towers vanished like ice before the heat, and 
trickled down into four rugged wells of flame. Great rents and splits 
branched out in the solid walls, like crystallization; stupefied birds 
wheeled about and dropped into the furnace ; four fierce figures trudged 
away. East, West, North, and South, along the night-enshrouded roads, 
guided by the beacon they had lighted, towards their next destination. 
The illuminated village had seized hold of the tocsin, and, abolishing the 
lawful ringer, rang for joy. 

Not only that; but the village, light-headed with famine, fire, and bell- 
ringing, and bethinking itself that Monsieur Gabelle had to do with the 
collection of rent and taxes — though it was but a small installment of 
taxes, and no rent at all, that Gabelle had got in those latter days — 
became impatient for an interview with him, and, surrounding his house, 
summoned him to come forth for personal conference. Whereupon, 
Monsieur Gabelle did heavily bar his door, and retire to hold counsel 
with himself. The result of that conference was, that Gabelle again 
withdrew himself to his house-top behind his stack of chimneys; this time 
resolved, if his door were broken in (he was a small Southern man of 
retaliative temperament), to pitch himself head foremost over the para- 
pet, and crush a man or two below. 

Probably, Monsieur Gabelle passed a long night up there, with the 


FIRE RISES 


223 


distant chateau for fire and candle, and the beating at his door, com- 
bined with the joy-ringing, for music; not to mention his having an ill- 
omened lamp slung across the road before his posting-house gate, which 
the village showed a lively inclination to displace in his favor. A trying 
suspense, to be passing a whole summer night on the brink of the black 
ocean, ready to take that plunge into it upon which Monsieur Gabelle 
had resolved 1 But, the friendly dawn appearing at last, and the rush- 
candles of the village guttering out, the people happily dispersed, and 
Monsieur Gabelle came down bringing his life with him for that while. 

Within a hundred miles, and in the light of other fires, there were 
other functionaries less fortunate, that night and other nights, whom the 
rising sun found hanging across once-peaceful streets, where they had 
been born and bred; also, there were other villagers and townspeople 
less fortunate than the mender of roads and his fellows, upon whom the 
functionaries and soldiery turned with success, and whom they strung up 
in their turn. But, the fierce figures were steadily wending East, West, 
North, and South, be that as it would; and whosoever hung, fire burned. 
The altitude of the gallows that would turn to water and quench it, no 
functionary, by any stretch of mathematics, was able to calculate success- 
fully. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


DkAtVN TO THE LOADSTONE ROCK 

I N such risings of fire and risings of sea — the firm earth shaken by 
the rushes of an angry ocean which had now no ebb, but was always 
on the flow, higher and higher, to the terror and wonder of the beholders 
on the shore — three years of tempest were consumed. Three more 
birthdays of little Lucie had been woven by the golden thread into the 
peaceful tissue of the life of her home. 

Many a night and many a day had its inmates listened to the echoes 
in the corner, with hearts that failed them when they heard the throng- 
ing feet. For, the footsteps had became to their minds as the footsteps 
of a people, tumultuous under a red flag and with their country declared 
in danger, changed into wild beasts, by terrible enchantment long per- 
sisted in. 

Monseigneur, as a class, had dissociated himself from the phenome- 
non of his not being appreciated; of his being so little wanted in France, 
as to incur considerable danger of receiving his dismissal from it, and 
this life together. Like the fabled rustic who raised the Devil with 
infinite pains, and was so terrified at the sight of him that he could ask 
the Enemy no question, but immediately fled; so. Monseigneur, after 
boldly reading the Lord’s Prayer backwards for a great number of years, 
and performing many other potent spells for compelling the Evil One, 
no sooner beheld him in his terrors than he took to his noble heels. 

The shining Bull’s Eye of the Court was gone, or it would have been 
the mark for a hurricane of national bullets. It had never been a good 
eye to see with — had long had the mote in it of Lucifer’s pride, Sar- 
danapalus’s luxury, and a mole’s blindness — but it had dropped out and 
was gone. The Court, from that exclusive inner circle to its outermost 
rotten ring of intrigue, corruption, and dissimulation, was all gone to- 
gether. Royalty was gone ; had been besieged in its Palace and “ sus- 
pended,” when the last tidings came over. 

The August of the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-two 
was come, and Monseigneur was by this time scattered far and wide. 

As was natural, the headquarters and great gathering-place of Mon- 

224 


DRAWN TO THE LOADSTONE ROCK 225 

seigneur, in London, was Tellson’s Bank. Spirits are supposed to haunt 
the places where their bodies most resorted, and Monseigneur without a 
guinea haunted the spot where his guineas used to be. Moreover, it 
was the spot to which such French intelligence as was most to be relied 
upon, came quickest. Again, Tellson’s was a munificent house, and ex- 
tended great liberality to old customers who had fallen from their high 
estate. Again, those nobles who had seen the coming storm in time, and 
anticipating plunder or confiscation, had made provident remittances to 
Tellson s, were always to be heard of there by their needy brethren. 
To which it must be added that every newcomer from France reported 
himself and his tidings at Tellson’s, almost as a matter of course. For 
such variety of reasons, Tellson’s was at that time, as to French intelli- 
gence, a kind of High Exchange; and this was so well known to the 
public, and the inquiries made there were in consequence so numerous, 
that Tellson’s sometimes wrote the latest news out in a line or so and 
posted it in the Bank windows, for all who ran through Temple Bar to 
read. 

On a steaming, misty afternoon, Mr. Lorry sat at his desk, and 
Charles Darnay stood leaning on it, talking with him in a low voice. 
The penitential den once set apart for interviews with the House, was 
now the news-Exchange, and was filled to overflowing. It was within 
half an hour or so of the time of closing. 

“ But, although you are the youngest man that ever lived,” said 
Charles Darnay, rather hesitating, “ I must still suggest to you — ” 

“ I understand. That I am too old? ” said Mr. Lorry. 

“ Unsettled weather, a long journey, uncertain means of traveling, a 
disorganized country, a city that may not be even safe for you.” 

“ My dear Charles,” said Mr. Lorry, with cheerful confidence, “ you 
touch some of the reasons for my going; not for my staying away. It 
is safe enough for me ; nobody will care to interfere with an old fellow 
of hard upon fourscore when there are so many people there much 
better worth interfering with. As to its being a disorganized city, if it 
were not a disorganized city there would be no occasion to send some- 
body from our House here to our House there, who knows the city and 
the business, of old, and is in Tellson’s confidence. As to the uncertain 
traveling, the long journey, and the winter weather, if I were not pre- 
pared to submit myself to a few inconveniences for the sake of Tellson’s* 
after all these years, who ought to be ? ” 


226 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ I wish I were going myself,” said Charles Darnay, somewhat rest- 
lessly, and like one thinking aloud. 

“ Indeed! You are a pretty fellow to object and advise! ” exclaimed 
Mr. Lorry. “ You wish you were going yourself? And you a French- 
man born? You are a wise counselor.” 

“ My dear Mr. Lorry, it is because I am a Frenchman born, that the 
thought (which I did not mean to utter here, however) has passed 
through my mind often. One cannot help thinking, having had some 
sympathy for the miserable people, and having abandoned something to 
them,” he spoke here in his former thoughtful manner, “ that one might 
be listened to, and might have the power to persuade to some restraint. 
Only last night, after you had left us, when I was talking to Lucie — ” 

“ When you were talking to Lucie,” Mr. Lorry repeated. “ Yes. I 
wonder you are not ashamed to mention the name of Lucie ! Wishing 
you were going to France at this time of day! ” 

“ However, I am not going,” said Charles Darnay, with a smile. 
“ It is more to the purpose that you say you are.” 

“ And I am, in plain reality. The truth is, my dear Charles,” Mr. 
Lorry glanced at the distant House, and lowered his voice, “ you can 
have no conception of the difficulty with which our business is trans- 
acted, and of the peril in which our books and papers over yonder are 
involved. The Lord above knows what the compromising consequences 
would be to numbers of people, if some of our documents were seized or 
destroyed; and they might be, at any time, you know, for who can say 
that Paris is not set afire to-day, or sacked to-morrow! Now, a judi- 
cious selection from these with the least possible delay, and the burying 
of them, or otherwise getting of them out of harm’s way, is within the 
power (without loss of precious time) of scarcely any one but myself, 
if any one. And shall I hang back, when Tellson’s knows this and says 
this — Tellson’s, whose bread I have eaten these sixty years — because 
I am a little stiff about the joints? Why, I am a boy, sir, to half a 
dozen old codgers here ! ” 

“ How I admire the gallantry of your youthful spirit, Mr. Lorry.” 

“Tut! Nonsense, sir! And, my dear Charles,” said Mr. Lorry, 
glancing at the House again, “ you are to remember, that getting things 
out of Paris at this present time, no matter what things, is next to an 
impossibility. Papers and precious matters were this very day brought 
to us here (I speak in strict confidence; it is not business-like to whisper 


DRAWN TO THE LOADSTONE ROCK 227 

it, even to you), by the strangest bearers you can imagine, every one of 
whom had his head hanging on by a single hair as he passed the Barriers. 
At another time, our parcels would come and go, as easily as in business- 
like Old England; but now, everything is stopped.” 

“ And do you really go to-night? ” 

I really go to-night, for the case has become too pressing to admit 
of delay.” 

“ And do you take no one with you? ” 

“ All sort of people have been proposed to me, but I will have noth- 
ing to say to any of them. I intend to take Jerry. Jerry has been my 
body-guard on Sunday nights for a long time past, and I am used to him. 
Nobody will suspect Jerry of being anything but an English bull-dog, or 
of having any design in his head but to fly at anybody who touches his 
master.” 

“ I must say again that I heartily admire your gallantry and youth- 
fulness.” 

“ I must say again, nonsense, nonsense ! When I have executed this 
little commission, I shall, perhaps, accept Tellson’s proposal to retire 
and live at my ease. Time enough, then, to think about growing old.” 

This dialogue had taken place at Mr. Lorry’s usual desk, with Mon- 
seigneur swarming within a yard or two of it, boastful of what he would 
do to avenge himself on the rascal-people before long. It was too 
much the way of Monsigneur under his reverses as a refugee, and it 
was much too much the way of native British orthodoxy, to talk of this 
terrible Revolution as if it were the one only harvest ever known under 
the skies that had not been sown — as if nothing had ever been done, or 
omitted to be done, that had led to it — as if observers of the wretched 
millions in France, and of the misused and perverted resources that 
should have made them prosperous, had not seen it inevitably coming, 
years before, and had not in plain words recorded what they saw. Such 
vaporing, combined with the extravagant plots of Monseigneiir for 
the restoration of a state of things that had utterly exhausted itself, and 
worn OL.t ITeaven and earth as well as itself, was hard to be endured 
withou. . me remonstrance by any sane man who knew the truth. And 
it was suoii vaporing all about his ears, like a troublesome confusion of 
blood in his own head, added to a latent uneasiness in his mind, which 
had already made Charles Darnay restless, and which still kept him so. 

Among the talkers, was Stryver, of the King’s Bench Bar, far on his 


228 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


way to state promotion, and, therefore, loud on the theme; broaching 
to Monseigneur, his devices for blowing the people up and exterminating 
them from the face of the earth, and doing without them; and for ac- 
complishing many similar objects akin in their nature to the abolition 
of eagles by sprinkling salt on the tails of the race. Him, Darnay 
heard with a particular feeling of objection; and Darnay stood divided 
between going away that he might hear no more, and remaining to 
interpose his word, when the thing that was to be, went on to shape 
itself out. 

The House approached Mr. Lorry, and laying a soiled and unopened 
letter before him, asked if he had yet discovered any traces of the 
person to whom it was addressed? The House laid the letter down 
so close to Darnay that he saw the direction — the more quickly be- 
cause it was his own right name. The address, turned into English, 
ran : 

“ Very pressing. To Monsieur heretofore the Marquis St. Evre- 
monde of France. Confided to the cares of Messrs. Tellson and Co., 
Bankers, London, England.*’ 

On the marriage morning. Dr. Manette had made it his one urgent 
and express request to Charles Darnay, that the secret of his name 
should be — unless he, the Doctor, dissolved the obligation — kept 
inviolate between them. Nobody else knew it to be his name, his own 
wife had no suspicion of the fact; Mr. Lorry could have none. 

“ No,” said Mr. Lorry, in reply to the House; “ I have referred it, 
I think, to everybody now here, and no one can tell me where this gentle- 
man is to be found.” 

The hands of the clock verging upon the hour of closing the Bank, 
there was a general set of the current of talkers past Mr. Lorry’s 
desk. He held the letter out inquiringly; and Monseigneur looked at it, 
in the person of this plotting and indignant refugee; and Monseigneur 
looked at it, in the person of that plotting and indignant refugee; and 
This, That, and The Other, all had something disparaging to say, in 
French, or in English, concerning the Marquis who was not to be 
found. 

“ Nephew, I believe — but in any case degenerate successor — of the 
polished Marquis who was murdered,” said one. “ Happy to say, I 
never knew him.” 

“ A craven who abandoned his post,” said another — this Mon- 


DRAWN TO THE LOADSTONE ROCK 229 

seigneur had been got out of Paris, legs uppermost and half-suffocated, 
m a load of hay — some years ago.” 

“ Infected with the new doctrines,” said a third, eyeing the direction 
through his glass in passing; “set himself in opposition to the last 
Marquis, abandoned the estates when he inherited them, and left them 
to the ruffian herd. They will recompense him now, I hope, as he 
deserves.” r 

“Hey?” cried the blatant Stryver. “Did he though? Is that 
the sort of fellow? Let us look at his infamous name. D— n the - 
fellow!” 

Darnay, unable to restrain himself any longer, touched Mr. Stryver 
on the shoulder, and said: 

“ I know the fellow.” 

“ Do you, by Jupiter? ” said Stryver. “ I am sorry for it.” 

“Why?” 

“ Why, Mr. Darnay? D’ye hear what he did? Don’t ask, why, in 
these times.” 

“ But I do ask why? ” 

“ Then I tell you again, Mr. Darnay, I am sorry for it. I am sorry 
to hear you putting any such extraordinary questions. Here is a 
fellow, who, infected by the most pestilent and blasphemous code of 
devilry that ever was known, abandoned his property to the vilest scum 
of the earth that ever did murder by wholesale, and you ask me why I 
am sorry that a man who instructs youth knows him? Well, but I’ll 
answer you. I am sorry because I believe there is contamination in 
such a scoundrel. That’s why.” 

^ Mindful of the secret, Darnay with great difficulty checked himself, 
and said: “ You may not understand the gentleman.” 

“ I understand how to put you in a corner, Mr. Darnay,” said Bully 
Stryver, “ and I’ll do it. If this fellow is a gentleman, I don^t under- 
stand him. You may tell him so, with my compliments. You may also 
tell him, from me, that after abandoning his worldly goods and position 
to this butcherly mob, I wonder he is not at the head of them. But, no, 
gentlemen,” said Stryver, looking all round, and snapping his fingers, 

“ I know something of human nature, and I tell you that you’ll never 
find a fellow like this fellow, trusting himself to the mercies of such 
precious proteges. No, gentlemen he’ll always show ’em a clean pair 
of heels very early in the scuffle, and sneak away.” 


230 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


With those words, and a final snap of his fingers, Mr. Stryver shoul- 
dered himself into Fleet Street, amidst the general approbation of his 
hearers. Mr. Lorry and Charles Darnay were left alone at the desk, 
in the general departure from the Bank. 

“ Will you take charge of the letter? ” said Mr. Lorry. “ You know 
where to deliver it? ” 

“ I do.” 

“ Will you undertake to explain, that we suppose it to have been ad- 
dressed here, on the chance of our knowing where to forward it, and 
that it has been here some time? ” 

“ I will do so. Do you start for Paris from here? ” 

“ From here, at eight.” 

“ I will come back, to see you off.” 

Very ill at ease with himself, and with Stryver and most other men, 
Darnay made the best of his way into the quiet of the Temple, opened 
the letter, and read it. These were its contents : 

“ Prison of the Abbaye, Paris, 

“ June 21, 1792. 


“ Monsieur heretofore the Marquis. 

“ After having long been in danger of my life at the hands of the 
village, I have been seized, with great violence and indignity, and 
brought a long journey on foot to Paris. On the road I have suffered 
a great deal. Nor is that all; my house has been destroyed — razed to 
the ground. 

“ The crime for which I am Imprisoned, Monsieur heretofore the 
Marquis, and for which I shall be summoned before the tribunal, and 
shall lose my life (without your so generous help), is, they tell me, 
treason against the majesty of the people, in that I have acted against 
them for an emigrant. It is in vain I represent that I have acted for 
them, and not against, according to your commands. It is in vain I 
represent that, before the sequestration of emigrant property, I had 
remitted the imposts they had ceased to pay; that I had collected no 
rent; that I had had recourse to no process. The only response is, that 
I have acted for an emigrant, and where is that emigrant? 

“ Ah ! most gracious Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, where is that 
emigrant? I cry in my sleep, where is he? I demand of Heaven, will 
he not come to deliver me? No answer. Ah, Monsieur heretofore the 


DRAWN TO THE LOADSTONE ROCK 231 

Marquis, I send my desolate cry across the sea, hoping it may perhaps 
reach your ears through the great bank of Tellson known at Paris ! 

“ For the love of Heaven, of justice, of generosity, of the honor of 
your noble name, I supplicate you. Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, 
to succor and release me. My fault is, that I have been true to you. 
Oh, Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, I pray you be true to me ! 

From this prison here of horror, whence I every hour tend nearer 
and nearer to destruction, I send you. Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, 
the assurance of my dolorous and unhappy service. 

“ Your afflicted, 

“ Gabelle.” 

The latent uneasiness in Darnay’s mind was roused to vigorous life by 
this letter. The peril of an old servant and a good one, whose only 
crime was fidelity to himself and his family, stared him so reproachfully 
in the face, that, as he walked to and fro in the Temple considering 
what to do, he almost hid his face from the passers-by. 

He knew very well, that in his horror of the deed which had culmi- 
nated the bad deeds and bad reputation of the old family house, in his 
resentful suspicions of his uncle, and in the aversion with which his con- 
science regarded the crumbling fabric that he was supposed to uphold, 
he had acted imperfectly. He knew very well, that in his love for 
Lucie, his renunciation of his social place, though by no means new to 
his own mind, had been hurried and incomplete. He knew that he 
ought to have systematically worked it out and supervised it, and that 
he had meant to do it, and that it had never been done. 

The happiness of his own chosen English home, the necessity of being 
always actively employed, the swift changes and troubles of the time 
which had followed on one another so fast, that the events of this week 
annihilated the immature plans of last week, and the events of the week 
following made all new again; he knew very well, that to the force of 
these circumstances he had yielded, — not without disquiet, but still 
without continuous and accumulating resistance. That he had watched 
the times for a time of action, and that they had shifted and struggled 
until the time had gone by, and the nobility were trooping from France 
by every highway and by-way, and their property was in course of con- 
fiscation and destruction, and their very names were blotting out, was 


232 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


as well known to himself as it could be to any new authority in France 
that might impeach him for it. 

But, he had oppressed no man, he had imprisoned no man; he was so 
far from having harshly exacted payment of his dues, that he had relin- 
quished them of his own will, thrown himself on a world with no favor 
in it, won his own private place there, and earned his own bread. Mon- 
sieur Gabelle had held the impoverished and involved estate on written 
instructions, to spare the people, to give them what little there was to 
give — such fuel as the heavy creditors would let them have in the 
winter, and such produce as could be saved from the same grip in the 
summer — and no doubt he had put the fact in plea and proof, for his 
own safety, so that it could not but appear now. 

This favored the desperate resolution Charles Darnay had begun to 
make, that he would go to Paris. 

Yes. Like the mariner in the old story, the winds and streams had 
driven him within the influence of the Loadstone Rock, and it was draw- 
ing him to itself, and he must go. Everything that arose before his 
mind drifted him on, faster and faster, more and more steadily, to the 
terrible attraction. His latent uneasiness had been, that bad aims were 
being worked out in his own unhappy land by bad instruments, and that 
he who could not fail to know that he was better than they, was not 
there, trying to do something to stay bloodshed, and assert the claims of 
mercy and humanity. With this uneasiness half stifled, and half re- 
proaching him, he had been brought to the pointed comparison of him- 
self with the brave old gentleman in whom duty was so strong; upon 
that comparison (injurious to himself) had instantly followed the sneers 
of Monseigneur, which had stung him bitterly, and those of Stryver, 
which above all were coarse and galling, for old reasons. Upon those, 
had followed Gabelle’s letter; the appeal of an innocent prisoner, in 
danger of death, to his justice, honor, and good name. 

His resolution was made. He must go to Paris. 

Yes. The Loadstone Rock was drawing him, and he must sail on, 
until he struck. He knew of no rock; he saw hardly any danger. The 
intention with which he had done what he had done, even although he 
had left it incomplete, presented it before him in an aspect that would 
be gratefully acknowledged in France on his presenting himself to assert 
it. Then, that glorious vision of doing good, which is so often the 


DRAWN TO THE LOADSTONE ROCK 


233 


sanguine mirage of so many good minds, arose before him, and he even 
saw himself in the illusion with some influence to guide this raging Revo- 
lution that was running so fearfully wild. 

As he walked to and fro with his resolution made, he considered that 
neither Lucie nor her father must know of it until he was gone. Lucie 
should be spared the pain of separation; and her father, always reluc- 
tant to turn his thoughts towards the dangerous ground of old, should 
come to the knowledge of the step, as a step taken, and not in the 
balance of suspense and doubt. How much of the incompleteness of 
his situation was referable to her father, through the painful anxiety to 
avoid reviving old associations of France in his mind, he did not discuss 
with himself. But, that circumstance too, had had its influence in his 
course. 

He walked to and fro, with thoughts very busy, until it was time to 
return to Tellson’s and take leave of Mr. Lorry. As soon as he ar- 
rived in Paris he would present himself to this old friend, but he must 
say nothing of his intention now. 

A carriage with post-horses was ready at the Bank door, and Jerry 
was booted and equipped. 

“ I have delivered that letter,” said Charles Darnay to Mr. Lorry. 
“ I would not consent to your being charged with any written answer, 
but perhaps you will take a verbal one? ” 

“ That I will, and readily,” said Mr. Lorry, “ if it is not dangerous.” 

“ Not at all. Though it is to a prisoner in the Abbaye.” 

“ What is his name?” said Mr. Lorry, with his open pocket-book in 
his hand. 

“ Gabelle.” ^ ^ . 

“ Gabelle. And what is the message to the unfortunate Gabelle in 

prison?” ^ 

“ Simply, ‘ that he has received the letter, and will come. 

“ Any time mentioned? ” 

“ He will start upon his journey to-morrow night.” 

“ Any person mentioned? ” 

“ No.” . . , ^ , 

He helped Mr. Lorry to wrap himself in a number of coats and 

cloaks, and went out with him from the warm atmosphere of the old 
Bank, into the misty air of Fleet Street. “ My love to Lucie, and to 


234 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


little Lucie,” said Mr. Lorry at parting, “ and take precious care of 
them till I come back.” Charles Darnay shook his head and doubt- 
fully smiled, as the carriage rolled away. 

That night — it was the fourteenth of August — he sat up late, and 
wrote two fervent letters; one was to Lucie, explaining the strong obli- 
gation he was under to go to Paris, arud showing her, at length, the 
reasons that he had, for feeling confident that he could become involved 
in no personal danger there; the other was to the Doctor, confiding 
Lucie and their dear child to his care, and dwelling on the same topics 
with the strongest assurances. To both, he wrote that he would dis- 
patch letters in proof of his safety, immediately after his arrival. 

It was a hard day, that day of being among them, with the first reser- 
vation of their joint lives on his mind. It was a hard matter to preserve 
the innocent deceit of which they wiere profoundly unsuspicious. But, 
an affectionate glance at his wife, so happy and busy, made him resolute 
not to tell her what impended (he had been half moved to do it, so 
strange it was to him to act in anything without her quiet aid), and the 
day passed quickly. Early in the evening he embraced her, and her 
scarcely less dear namesake, pretending that he would return by and by 
(an imaginary engagement took him out, and he had secreted a valise 
of clothes ready), and so he emerged into the heavy mist of the heavy 
streets, with a heavier heart. 

The unseen force was drawing him fast to itself, now, and all the tides 
and winds were setting straight and strong towards it. He left his two 
letters with a trusty porter, to be delivered half an hour before mid- 
night, and no sooner; took horse for Dover; and began his journey. 

” For the love of Heaven, of justice, of generosity, of the honor of 
your noble name ! ” was the poor prisoner’s cry with which he strength- 
ened his sinking heart, as he left all that was dear on earth behind him, 
and floated away for the Loadstone Rock. 


BOOK THE THIRD 

THE TRACK OF A STORM 







CHAPTER I 


IN SECRET 

T he traveler fared slowly on his way, who fared towards Paris 
from England in the autumn of the year one thousand seven hun- 
dred and ninety-two. More than enough of bad roads, bad equipages, 
and bad horses, he would have encountered to delay him, though the 
fallen and unfortunate King of France had been upon his throne in all 
his glory; but, the changed times were fraught with other obstacles than 
these. Every town-gate and village taxing-house had its band of citizen- 
patriots, with their national muskets in a most explosive state of readi- 
ness, who stopped all comers and goers, cross-questioned them, inspected 
their papers, looked for their names in lists of their own, turned them 
back, or sent them on, or stopped them and laid them in hold, as their 
capricious judgment or fancy deemed best for the dawning Republic 
One and Indivisible, of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death. 

A very few French leagues of his journey were accomplished, when 
Charles Darnay began to perceive that for him along these country roads 
there was no hope of return until he should have been declared a good 
citizen at Paris. Whatever might befall now, he must on to his jour- 
ney’s end. Not a mean village closed upon him, not a common barrier 
dropped across the road behind him, but he knew it to be another iron 
door in the series that was barred between him and England. The uni- 
versal watchfulness so encompassed him, that if he had been taken in a 
net, or were being forwarded to his destination in a cage, he could not 
have felt his freedom more completely gone. 

This universal watchfulness not only stopped him on the highway 
twenty times in a stage, but retarded his progress twenty times in a day, 
by riding after him and taking him back, riding before him and stopping 
him by anticipation, riding with him and keeping him in charge. He 
had been days upon his journey in France alone, when he went to bed 
tired out, in a little town on the high-road, still a long way from Paris. 

Nothing but the production of the afflicted Gabelle’s letter from his 
prison of the Abbaye would have got him on so far. His difficulty at 

237 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


238 

the guardhouse in this small place had been such, that he felt his journey 
to have come to a crisis. And he was, therefore, as little surprised as a 
man could be, to find himself awakened at the small inn to which he had 
been remitted until morning, in the middle of the night. 

Awakened by a timid local functionary and three armed patriots in 
rough red caps and with pipes in their mouths, who sat down on the bed. 

“ Emigrant,’’ said the functionary, “ I am going to send you on to 
Paris, under an escort.” 

“ Citizen, I desire nothing more than to get to Paris, though I could 
dispense with the escort.” 

“ Silence! ” growled a red-cap, striking at the coverlet with the butt- 
end of his musket. “ Peace, aristocrat 1 ” 

“ It is as the good patriot says,” observed the timid functionary. 
“You are an aristocrat, and must have an escort — and must pay 
for it.” 

“ I have no choice,” said Charles Darnay. 

“ Choice 1 Listen to him 1 ” cried the same scowling red-cap. “ As 
if it was not a favor to be protected from the lamp-iron! ” 

“ It is always as the good patriot says,” observed the functionary. 
“ Rise and dress yourself, emigrant.” 

Darnay complied, and was taken back to the guardhouae, where other 
patriots in rough red caps were smoking, drinking, and sleeping, by a 
watch-fire. Here he paid a heavy price for his escort, and hence he 
started with it on the wet, wet roads at three o’clock in the morning. 

The escort were two mounted patriots in red caps and tricolored cock- 
ades, armed with national muskets and sabers, who rode one on either 
side of him. The escorted governed his own horse, but a loose line 
was attached to his bridle, the end of which one of the patriots kept 
girded round his wrist. In this state they set forth with the sharp rain 
driving in their faces; clattering at a heavy dragoon trot over the uneven 
town pavement, and out upon the mire-deep roads. In this state they 
traversed without change, except of horses and pace, all the mire-deep 
leagues that lay between them and the capital. 

They traveled in the night, halting an hour or two after daybreak, 
and lying by until the twilight fell. The escort were so wretchedly 
clothed, that they twisted straw round their bare legs, and thatched their 
ragged shoulders to keep the wet off. Apart from the personal dis- 
comfort of being so attended, and apart from such considerations of 


IN SECRET 


239 

present danger as arose from one of the patriots being chronically 
drunk, and carrying his musket very recklessly, Charles Darnay did not 
allow the restraint that was laid upon him to awaken any serious fears 
in his breast; for, he reasoned with himself that it could have no refer- 
ence to the merits of an individual case that was not yet stated, and of 
representations, confirmable by the prisoner in the Abbaye, that were not 
yet made. 

But when they came to the town of Beauvais — which they did at 
eventide, when the streets were filled with people — he could not con- 
ceal from himself that the aspect of affairs was very alarming. An 
ominous crowd gathered to see him dismount at the posting-yard, and 
many voices called out loudly, ‘‘ Down with the emigrant 1 ” 

He stopped in the act of swinging himself out of his saddle, and, 
resuming it as his safest place, said: 

“ Emigrant, my friends ! Do you not see me here, in France, of my 
own will? ” 

“ You are a cursed emigrant,” cried a farrier, making at him in a 
furious manner through the press, hammer in hand; “and you are a 
cursed aristocrat ! ” 

The postmaster interposed himself between this man and the rider’s 
bridle (at which he was evidently making), and soothingly said, “ Let 
him be ; let him be I He will be judged at Paris.” 

“ Judged ! ” repeated the farrier, swinging his hammer. “ Aye 1 and 
condemned as a traitor.” At this the crowd roared approval. 

Checking the postmaster, who was for turning his horse’s head to the 
yard (the drunken patriot sat composedly in his saddle looking on, with 
the line round his wrist), Darnay said, as soon as he could make his 
voice heard: 

“ Friends, you deceive yourselves, or you are deceived. I am not a 
traitor.” 

“ He lies ! ” cried the smith. “ He is a traitor since the decree. His 
life is forfeit to the people. His cursed life is not his own ! ” 

At the instant when Darnay saw a rush in the eyes of the crowd, which 
another instant would have brought upon him, the postmaster turned his 
horse into the yard, the escort rode in close upon his horse’s flanks, and 
the postmaster shut and barred the crazy double gates. The farrier 
struck a blow upon them with his hammer, and the crowd groaned; but, 
no more was done. 


240 


A TALE OE TWO CITIES 


“ What is this decree that the smith spoke of?” Darnay asked the 
postmaster, when he had thanked him, and stood beside him in the yard. 

“ Truly, a decree for selling the property of emigrants.” 

“When passed?” 

“ On the fourteenth.” 

“The day I left England!” 

“ Everybody says it is but one of several, and that there will be 
others — if there are not already — banishing all emigrants, and con- 
demning all to death who return. That is what he meant when he said 
your life was not your own.” 

“ But there are no such decrees yet? ” 

“ What do I know! ” said the postmaster, shrugging his shoulders; 
“ there may be, or there will be. It is all the same. What would you 
have ? ” 

They rested on some straw in a loft until the middle of the night, and 
then rode forward again when all the town was asleep. Among the 
many wild changes observable on familiar things which made this wild 
ride unreal, not the least was the seeming rarity of sleep. After long 
and lonely spurring over dreary roads, they would come to a cluster of 
poor cottages, not steeped in darkness, but all glittering with lights, and 
would find the people, in a ghostly manner in the dead of the night, 
circling hand in hand round a shriveled tree of Liberty, or all drawn up 
together singing a Liberty song. Happily, however, there was sleep in 
Beauvais that night to help them out of it, and they passed on once 
more into solitude and loneliness; jingling through the untimely cold and 
wet, among impoverished fields that had yielded no fruits of the earth 
that year, diversified by the blackened remains of burnt houses, and by 
the sudden emergence from ambuscade, and sharp reining up across their 
way, of patriot patrols on the watch on all the roads. 

Daylight at last found them before the wall of Paris. The barrier 
was closed and strongly guarded when they rode up to it. 

“Where are the papers of this prisoner?” demanded a resolute- 
looking man in authority, who was summoned out by the guard. 

Naturally struck by the disagreeable word, Charles Darnay requested 
the speaker to take notice that he was a free traveler and French citizen, 
in charge of an escort which the disturbed state of the country had im- 
posed upon him, and which he had paid for. 


241 


IN SECRET 

“ Where,” repeated the same personage, without taking any heed of 
him whatever, “ are the papers of this prisoner? ” 

The drunken patriot had them in his cap, and produced them. Cast- 
ing his eyes over Gabelle’s letter, the same personage in authority 
showed some disorder and surprise, and looked at Darnay with a close 
attention. 

He left escort and escorted without saying a word, however, and went 
into the guard-room; meanwhile, they sat upon their horses outside the 
gate. Looking about him while in this state of suspense, Charles Dar- 
nay observed that the gate was held by a mixed guard of soldiers and 
patriots, the latter far outnumbering the former; and that while ingress 
into the city for peasants’ carts bringing in supplies, and for similar 
traffic and traffickers, was easy enough, egress, even for the homeliest 
people, was very difficult. A numerous medley of men and women, not 
to mention beasts and vehicles of various sorts, was waiting to issue 
forth; but, the previous identification was so strict, that they filtered 
through the barrier very slowly. Some of these people knew their turn 
for examination to be so far off, that they lay down on the ground to 
sleep or smoke, while others talked together, or loitered about. The 
red cap and tricolor cockade were universal, both among men and 
women. 

When he had sat in his saddle some half-hour, taking note of these 
things, Darnay found himself confronted by the same man in authority, 
who directed the guard to open the barrier. Then he delivered to the 
escort, drunk and sober, a receipt for the escorted, and requested him to 
dismount. He did so, and the two patriots, leading his tired horse, 
turned and rode away without entering the city. 

He accompanied his conductor into a guard-room, smelling of com- 
mon wine and tobacco, where certain soldiers and patriots, asleep and 
awake, drunk and sober, and in various neutral states between sleeping 
and waking, drunkenness and sobriety, were standing and lying about. 
The light in the guard-house, half derived from the waning oil-lamps 
of the night, and half from the overcast day, was in a correspondingly 
uncertain condition. Some registers were lying open on a desk, and an 
officer of a coarse, dark aspect, presided over these. 

“ Citizen Defarge,” said he to Darnay’s conductor, as he took a slip 
of paper to write on. “ Is this the emigrant Evremonde? ” 


242 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ This is the man.’* 

“ Your age, Evremonde? ” 

“ Thirty-seven.” 

“ Married, Evremonde?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Where married.” 

“ In England.” 

“ Without doubt. Where is your wife, Evremonde? ” 

“ In England.” 

“ Without doubt. You are consigned, Evremonde, to the prison of 
La Force.” 

“Just Heaven!” exclaimed Darnay. “Under what law, and for 
what offense? ” 

The officer looked up from his slip of paper for a moment. 

“ We have new laws, Evremonde, and new offenses, since you were 
here.” He said it with a hard smile, and went on writing. 

“ I entreat you to observe that I have come here voluntarily, in re- 
sponse to that written appeal of a fellow-countryman which lies before 
you. I demand no more than the opportunity to do so without delay. 
Is not that my right? ” 

“ Emigrants have no rights, Evremonde,” was the stolid reply. The 
officer wrote until he had finished, read over to himself what he had 
written, sanded it, and handed it to Defarge, with the words “ In 
secret.” 

Defarge motioned with the paper to the prisoner that he must accom- 
pany him. The prisoner obeyed, and a guard of two armed patriots 
attended them. 

“ Is it you,” said Defarge, in a low voice, as they went down the 
guard-house steps and turned into Paris, “ who married the daughter 
of Doctor Manette, once a prisoner in the Bastille that is no more? ” 

“ Yes,” replied Darnay, looking at him with surprise. 

“ My name is Defarge, and I keep a wine-shop in the Quarter Saint 
Antoine. Possibly you have heard of me.” 

“ My wife came to your house to reclaim her father? Yes! ” 

The word “ wife ” seemed to serve as a gloomy reminder to Defarge, 
to say with sudden impatience, “ In the name of that sharp female newly- 
born, and called La Guillotine, why did you come to France? ” 


IN SECRET 243 

You heard me say why, a minute ago. Do you not believe it is the 
truth?” 

A bad truth for you,” said Defarge, speaking with knitted brows, 
and looking straight before him. 

Indeed I am lost here. All here is so unprecedented, so changed, 
so sudden and unfair, that I am absolutely lost. Will you render me 
a little help ? ” 

None. Defarge spoke, always looking straight before him. 

“ Will you answer me a single question? ” 

Perhaps. According to its nature. You can say what it is.” 

In this prison that I am going to so unjustly, shall I have some free 
communication with the world outside ? ” 

“ You will see.” 

“ I am not to be buried there, prejudged, and without any means of 
presenting my case? ” 

“ You will see. But, what then? Other people have been similarly 
buried in worse prisons, before now.” 

” But never by me, Citizen Defarge.” 

Defarge glanced darkly at him for answer, and walked on in a steady 
and set silence. The deeper he sank into this silence, the fainter hope 
there was — or so Darnay thought — of his softening in any slight 
degree. He, therefore, made haste to say; 

“ It is of the utmost importance to me (you know, Citizen, even bet- 
ter than I, of how much importance), that I should be able to communi- 
cate to Mr. Lorry of Tellson’s Bank, an English gentleman who is now 
in Paris, the simple fact, without comment, that I have been thrown into 
the prison of La Force. Will you cause that to be done for me? ” 

‘‘ I will do,” Defarge doggedly rejoined, ” nothing for you. My 
duty is to my country and the People. I am the sworn servant of both, 
against you. I will do nothing for you.” 

Charles Darnay felt it hopeless to entreat him further, and his pride 
was touched besides. As they walked on in silence, he could not but see 
how used the people were to the spectacle of prisoners passing along the 
streets. The very children scarcely noticed him. A few passers turned 
their heads, and a few shook their fingers at him as an aristocrat; other- 
wise, that a man in good clothes should be going to prison, was no more 
remarkable than that a laborer in working clothes should be going to 


244 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


work. In one narrow, dark, and dirty street through which they passed, 
an excited orator, mounted on a stool, was addressing an excited audience 
on the crimes against the people, of the king and the royal family. The 
few words that he caught from this man’s lips, first made it known to 
Charles Darnay that the king was in prison, and that the foreign am- 
bassadors had one and all left Paris. On the road (except at Beau- 
vais) he had heard absolutely nothing. The escort and the universal 
watchfulness had completely isolated him. 

That he had fallen among far greater dangers than those which had 
developed themselves when he left England, he of course knew now. 
That perils had thickened about him fast, and might thicken faster and 
faster yet, he of course knew now. He could not but admit to himself 
that he might not have made this journey, if he could have foreseen the 
events of a few days. And yet his misgivings were not so dark as, 
imagined by the light of this later time, they would appear. Troubled 
as the future was, it was the unknown future, and in its obscurity there 
was ignorant hope. The horrible massacre, days and nights long, 
which, within a few rounds of the clock, was to set a great mark of blood 
upon the blessed garnering time of harvest, was as far out of his knowl- 
edge as if it had been a hundred thousand years away. The “ sharp 
female newly-born, and called La Guillotine,” was hardly known to him, 
or to the generality of people, by name. The frightful deeds that were 
to be soon done, were probably unimagined at that time in the brains of 
the doers. How could they have a place in the shadowy conceptions of 
a gentle mind? 

Of unjust treatment in detention and hardship, and in cruel separa- 
tion from his wife and child, he foreshadowed the likelihood, or the cer- 
tainty; but, beyond this, he dreaded nothing distinctly. With this on 
his mind, which was enough to carry into a dreary prison court-yard, he 
arrived at the prison of La Force. 

A man with a bloated face opened the strong wicket, to whom De- 
farge presented “ The Emigrant Evremonde.” 

“ What the Devil! How many more of them! ” exclaimed the man 
with the bloated face. 

Defarge took his receipt without noticing the exclamation, and with- 
drew, with his two fellow-patriots. 

“ What the Devil, I say again! ” exclaimed the gaoler, left with his 
wife. “ How many more I ” 


IN SECRET 


245 

The gaoler s wife, being provided with no answer to the question, 
merely replied, One must have patience, my dear ! ” Three turnkeys 
who entered responsive to a bell she rang, echoed the sentiment, and one 
added, ‘ For the love of Liberty;’’ which sounded in that place like an 
inappropriate conclusion. 

The prison of La Force was a gloomy prison, dark and filthy, and 
with a horrible smell of foul sleep in it. Extraordinary how soon the 
noisome flavor of imprisoned sleep, becomes manifest in all such places 
that are ill cared for ! 

“ In secret, too,” grumbled the gaoler, looking at the written paper. 
“ As if I was not already full to bursting! ” 

He stuck the paper on a file, in an ill-humor, and Charles Darnay 
awaited his further pleasure for half an hour; sometimes, pacing to and 
fro in the strong arched room; sometimes, resting on a stone seat; in 
either case detained to be imprinted on the memory of the chief and his 
subordinates. 

“ Come I ” said the chief, at length taking up his keys, “ come with me, 
emigrant.” 

Through the dismal prison twilight, his new charge accompanied him 
by corridor and staircase, many doors clanging and locking behind them, 
until they came into a large, low, vaulted chamber, crowded with pris- 
oners of both sexes. The women were seated at a long table, reading 
and writing, knitting, sewing, and embroidering; the men were for the 
most part standing behind their chairs, or lingering up and down the 
room. 

In the instinctive association of prisoners with shameful crime and 
disgrace, the new-comer recoiled from this company. But the crowning 
unreality of his long unreal ride, was, their all at once rising to receive 
him, with every refinement of manner known to the time, and with all 
the engaging graces and courtesies of life. 

So strangely clouded were these refinements by the prison manners 
and gloom, so spectral did they become in the inappropriate squalor and 
misery through which they were seen, that Charles Darnay seemed to 
stand in a company of the dead. Ghosts all! The ghost of beauty, 
the ghost of stateliness, the ghost of elegance, the ghost of pride, the 
ghost of frivolity, the ghost of wit, the ghost of youth, the ghost of age, 
all waiting their dismissal from the desolate shore, all turning on him 
eyes that were changed by the death they had died in coming there. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


246 

It struck him motionless. The gaoler standing at his side, and the 
other gaolers moving about, who would have been well enough as to 
appearance in the ordinary exercise of their functions, looked so extrava- 
gantly coarse contrasted with sorrowing mothers and blooming daugh- 
ters who were there — with the apparitions of the coquette, the young 
beauty, and the mature woman delicately bred — that the inversion of 
all experience and likelihood which the scene of shadows presented, was 
heightened to its utmost. Surely, ghosts all. Surely, the long unreal 
ride some progress of disease that had brought him to these gloomy 
shades I 

“ In the name of the assembled companions in misfortune,” said a 
gentleman of courtly appearance and address, coming forward, “ I 
have the honor of giving you welcome to La Force, and of condoling 
with you on the calamity that has brought you among us. May it 
soon terminate happily! It would be an impertinence elsewhere, but 
it is not so here, to ask your name and condition? ” 

Charles Darnay roused himself, and gave the required infomation, 
in words as suitable as he could find. 

“ But I hope,” said the gentleman, following the chief gaoler with 
his eyes, who moved across the room, “ that you are not in secret? ” 

“ I do not understand the meaning of the term, but I have heard 
them say so.” 

“Ah, what a pity! We so much regret it! But take courage; sev- 
eral members of our society have been in secret, at first, and it has lasted 
but a short time.” Then he added, raising his voice, “ I grieve to 
inform the society — in secret.” 

There was a murmur of commiseration as Charles Darnay crossed 
the room to a grated door where the gaoler awaited him, and many 
voices — among which, the soft and compassionate voices of women 
were conspicuous — gave him good wishes and encouragement. He 
turned at the grated door, to render the thanks of his heart; it closed 
under the gaoler’s hand; and the apparitions vanished from his sight 
for ever. 

The wicket opened on a stone staircase, leading upward. When 
they had ascended forty steps (the prisoner of half an hour already 
counted them), the gaoler opened a low black door, and they passed 
into a solitary cell. It struck cold and damp, but was not dark. 

“ Yours/’ said the gaoler. 





The gaoler opened a low black door 


/ 













t 


IN SECRET 


247 


“Why am I confined alone?” 

“ How do I know ! ” 

“ I can buy pen, ink, and paper?” 

Such are not my orders. You will be visited, and can ask them. 
At present, you may buy your food and nothing more.” 

There were in the cell, a chair, a table, and a straw mattress. As 
the gaoler made a general inspection of these objects, and of the four 
walls, before going out, a wandering fancy wandered through the mind 
of the prisoner leaning against the wall opposite to him, that this gaoler 
was so unwholesomely bloated, both in face and person, as to look 
like a man who had been drowned and filled with water. When the 
gaoler was gone, he thought; in the same wandering way, “ Now am I 
left, as if I were dead.” Stopping then, to look down at the mattress, 
he turned from it with a sick feeling, and thought, “ And here in these 
crawling creatures is the first condition of the body after death.” 

“ Five paces by four and a half, five paces by four and a half, five 
paces by four and a half.” The prisoner walked to and fro in his 
cell, counting its measurement, and the roar of the city arose like 
muffled drums with a wild swell of voices added to them. “ He made 
shoes, he made shoes, he made shoes.” The prisoner counted the 
measurement again, and paced faster, to draw his mind with him from 
that latter repetition. “ The ghosts that vanished when the wicket 
closed. There was one among them, the appearance of a lady dressed 
in black, who was leaning in the embrasure of a window, and she had 
a light shining upon her golden hair, and she looked like . . . Let us 
ride on again, for God’s sake, through the illuminated villages with 
the people all awake! ... He made shoes, he made shoes, he made 
shoes. . . . Five paces by four and a half.” With such scraps tossing 
and rolling upward from the depths of his mind, the prisoner walked 
faster and faster, obstinately counting and counting; and the roar of 
the city changed to this extent — that it still rolled in like muffled drums, 
but with the wail of voices that he knew, in the swell that rose above 
them. 


CHAPTER II 


THE GRINDSTONE 

T ELLSON’S bank, established in the Saint Germain Quarter of 
Paris, was in a wing of a large house, approached by a court- 
yard and shut off from the street by a high wall and a strong gate. The 
house belonged to a great nobleman who had lived in it until he made 
a flight from the troubles, in his own cook’s dress, and got across the 
borders. A mere beast of the chase flying from hunters, he was still 
in his metempsychosis no other than the same Monseigneur, the prepara- 
tion of whose chocolate for whose lips had once occupied three strong 
men besides the cook in question. 

Monseigneur gone, and the three strong men absolving themselves 
from the sin of having drawn his high wages, by being more than ready 
and willing to cut his throat on the altar of the dawning Republic One 
and Indivisible of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death, Mon- 
seigneur’s house had been first sequestrated, and then confiscated. For, 
all things moved so fast, and decree followed decree with that fierce 
precipitation, that now upon the third night of the autumn month of 
September, patriot emissaries of the law were in possession of Mon- 
seigneur’s house, and had marked it with the tricolor, and were drinking 
brandy in its state apartments. 

A place of business in London like Tellson’s place of business in 
Paris, would soon have driven the House out of its mind and into the 
Gazette. For, what would staid British responsibility and respecta- 
bility have said to orange-trees in boxes in a Bank court-yard, and even 
to a Cupid over the counter? Yet such things were. Tellson’s had 
whitewashed the Cupid, but he was still to be seen on the ceiling, in 
the coolest linen, aiming (as he very often does) at money from morn- 
ing to night. Bankruptcy must inevitably have come of this young 
Pagan, in Lombard Street, London, and also of a curtained alcove in the 
rear of the immortal boy, and also of a looking-glass let into the wall, 
and also of clerks not at all old, who danced in public on the slightest 

248 


THE GRINDSTONE 


249 

provocation. Yet, a French Tellson’s could get on with these things 
exceedingly well, and, as long as the times held together, no man had 
taken fright at them, and drawn out his money. 

What money would be drawn out of Tellson’s henceforth, and what 
would lie there, lost and forgotten; what plate and jewels would tarnish 
in Xellson’s hiding-places, while the depositors rusted in prisons, and 
when they should have violently perished; how many accounts with 
Tellson’s never to be balanced in this world, must be carried over into 
the next; no man could have said, that night, any more than Mr. Jarvis 
Lorry could, though he thought heavily of these questions. He sat by 
a newly-lighted wood fire (the blighted and unfruitful year was pre- 
maturely cold), and on his honest and courageous face there was a 
deeper shade than the pendent lamp could throw, or any object in the 
room distortedly reflect — a shade of horror. 

He occupied rooms in the Bank, in his fidelity to the House of which 
he had grown to be a part, like strong root-ivy. It chanced that they 
derived a kind of security from the patriotic occupation of the main 
building, but the true-hearted old gentleman never calculated about 
that. All such circumstances were indifferent to him, so that he did his 
duty. On the opposite side of the court-yard, under a colonnade, was 
extensive standing for carriages — where, indeed, some carriages of 
Monseigneur yet stood. Against two of the pillars were fastened two 
great flaring flambeaux, and in the light of these, standing out in the 
open air, was a large grindstone; a roughly mounted thing which ap- 
peared to have hurriedly been brought there from some neighboring 
smithy, or other workshop. Rising and looking out of the window at 
these harmless objects, Mr. Lorry shivered, and retired to his seat by 
the fire. He had opened, not only the glass window, but the lattice blind 
outside it, and he had closed both again, and he shivered through his 
frame. 

From the streets beyond the high wall and the strong gate, there 
came the usual night hum of the city, with now and then an indescrib- 
able ring in it, weird and unearthly, as if some unwonted sounds of a 
terrible nature were going up to Heaven. 

“ Thank God,” said Mr. Lorry, clasping his hands, “ that no one 
near and dear to me is in this dreadful town to-night. May He have 
mercy on all who are in danger I 

Soon afterwards, the bell at the great gate sounded, and he thought. 


250 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ They have come back I ” and sat listening. But there was no loud 
irruption into the court-yard, as he had expected, and he heard the gate 
clash again, and all was quiet. 

The nervousness and dread that were upon him inspired that vague 
uneasiness respecting the Bank, which a great change would naturally 
awaken, with such feelings roused. It was well guarded, and he got up 
to go among the trusty people who were watching it, when his door 
suddenly opened, and two figures rushed in, at sight of which he 
fell back in amazement. 

Lucie and her father I Lucie with her arms stretched out to him, and 
with that old look of earnestness so concentrated and intensified, that 
it seemed as though it had been stamped upon her face expressly to give 
force and power to it in this one passage of her life. 

“ What is this? ” cried Mr. Lorry, breathless and confused. “ What 
is the matter? Lucie! Manette! What has happened? What has 
brought you here ? What is it ? ” 

With the look fixed upon him, in her paleness and wildness, she 
panted out in his arms, imploringly, “O my dear friend! My hus- 
band! ” 

“ Your husband, Lucie? ’’ 

“ Charles.’’ 

“What of Charles?” 

“ Here.” 

“Here, in Paris?” 

“Has been here some days — three or four — I don’t know how 
many — I can’t collect my thoughts. An errand of generosity brought 
him here unknown to us; he was stopped at the barrier, and sent to 
prison.” 

The old man uttered an irrepressible cry. Almost at the same 
moment, the bell of the great gate rang again, and a loud noise of 
feet and voices came pouring into the court-yard. 

“What is that noise?” said the Doctor, turning towards the win- 
dow. 

“ Don’t look! ” cried Mr. Lorry. “ Don’t look out! Manette, for 
your life, don’t touch the blind! ” 

The Doctor turned, with his hand upon the fastening of the window, 
and said, with a cool, bold smile: 

“ My dear friend, I have a charmed life in this city. I have been 


THE GRINDSTONE 251 

a Bastille prisoner. There is no patriot in Paris — in Paris? In 
France who, knowing me to have been a prisoner in the Bastille, 
would touch me, except to overwhelm me with embraces, or carry me 
in triumph. My old pain has given me a power that has brought us 
through the barrier, and gained us news of Charles there, and brought 
us here. I knew it would be so; I knew I could help Charles out of 
all danger; I told Lucie so. What is that noise” His hand was 
again upon the window. 

“ Don’t look! ” cried Mr. Lorry, absolutely desperate. “ No, Lucie, 
my dear, nor you ! ” He got his arm round her, and held her. “ Don’t 
be so terrified, my love. I solemnly swear to you that I know of no 
harm having happened to Charles; that I had no suspicion even of his 
being in this fatal place. What prison is he in? ” 

“ La Force!” 

“ La Force ! Lucie, my child, if ever you were brave and service- 
able in your life — and you were always both — you will compose your- 
self now, to do exactly as I bid you ; for more depends upon it than you 
can think, or I can say. There is no help for you in any action on 
your part to-night; you cannot possibly stir out. I say this, because 
what I must bid you to do for Charles’s sake, is the hardest thing to 
do of all. You must instantly be obedient, still, and quiet. You must 
let me put you in a room at the back here. You must leave your father 
and me alone for two minutes, and as there are Life and Death in 
the world you must not delay.” 

“ I will be submissive to you. I see in your face that you know 
I can do nothing else than this. I know you are true.” 

The old man kissed her, and hurried her into his room, and turned 
the key; then, came hurrying back to the Doctor, and opened the 
window and partly opened the blind, and put his hand upon the 
Doctor’s arm, and looked out with him into the court-yard. 

Looked out upon a throng of men and women; not enough in number, 
or near enough, to fill the court-yard; not more than forty or fifty 
in all. The people in possession of the house had let them in at the 
gate, and they had rushed in to work at the grind-stone; it had evi- 
dently been set up there for their purpose, as in a convenient and retired 
spot. 

But, such a.wful workers, and such awful work! 

The grindsion^ h^d ^ double handle, and, turning at it madly were 


252 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


two men, whose faces, as their long hair flapped back when the whirlings 
of the grind-stone brought their faces up, were more horrible and 
cruel than the visages of the wildest savages in their most barbarous 
disguise. False eyebrows and false mustaches were stuck upon them, 
and their hideous countenances were all bloody and sweaty, and all 
awry with howling, and all staring and glaring with beastly excite- 
ment and want of sleep. As these ruffians turned and turned, their 
matted locks now flung forward over their eyes, now flung backward 
over their necks, some women held wine to their mouths that they 
might drink; and what with dropping blood, and what with dropping 
wine, and what with the stream of sparks struck out of the stone, all 
their wicked atmosphere seemed gore and fire. The eye could not 
detect one creature in the group free from the smear of blood. Shoul- 
dering one another to get next at the sharpening-stone were men stripped 
to the waist, with the stain all over their limbs and bodies; men in all 
sorts of rags, with the stain upon those rags; men devilishly set off with 
spoils of women’s lace and silk and ribbon, with the stain dying those 
trifles through and through. Hatchets, knives, bayonets, swords, all 
brought to be sharpened, were all red with it. Some of the hacked 
swords were tied to the wrists of those who carried them, with strips 
of linen and fragments of dress; ligatures various in kind, but all 
deep of the one color. And as the frantic wielders of these weapons 
snatched them from the stream of sparks and tore away into the streets, 
the same red hue was read in their frenzied eyes; eyes which any 
unbrutalized beholder would have given twenty years of life, to petrify 
with a well-directed gun. 

All this was seen in a moment, as the vision of a drowning man, or 
of any human creature at any very great pass, could see a world if it 
were there. They drew back from the window, and the Doctor looked 
for explanation in his friend’s ashy face. 

“ They are,” Mr. Lorry whispered the words, glancing fearfully 
round at the locked room, “ murdering the prisoners. If you are sure 
of what you say; if you really have the power you think you have — 
as I believe you have — make yourself known to these devils, and get 
taken to La Force. It may be too late, I don’t know, but let it not 
be a minute later ! ” 

Doctor Manette pressed his hand, hastened bare-headed out of 


THE GRINDSTONE 253 

the room, and was in the court-yard when Mr. Lorry regained the 
blind. 

His streaming white hair, his remarkable face, and the impetuous 
confidence of his manner, as he put the weapons aside like water, car- 
ried him in an instant to the heart of the concourse at the stone. For 
a few moments there was a pause, and a hurry, and a murmur, and the 
unintelligible sound of his voice; and then Mr. Lorry saw him, sur- 
rounded by all, and in the midst of a line of twenty men long, all linked 
shoulder to shoulder, and hand to shoulder, hurried out with cries of — 
“ Live the Bastille prisoner ! Help for the Bastille prisoner’s kindred in 
La Force! Room for the Bastille prisoner in front there! Save 
the prisoner Evremonde at La Force!” and a thousand answering 
shouts. 

He closed the lattice again with a fluttering heart, closed the win- 
dow and the curtain, hastened to Lucie, and told her that her father was 
assisted by the people, and gone in search of her husband. He found 
her child and Miss Pross with her; but, it never occurred to him to be 
surprised by their appearance until a long time afterwards, when he 
sat watching them in such quiet as the night knew. 

Lucie had, by that time, fallen into a stupor on the floor at his 
feet, clinging to his hand. Miss Pross had laid the child down on 
his own bed, and her head had gradually fallen on the pillow beside 
her pretty charge. O the long, long night, with the moans of the 
poor wife ! And O the long, long night, with no return of her father 
and no tidings ! 

Twice more in the darkness the bell at the great gate sounded, and 
the irruption was repeated, and the grindstone whirled and spluttered. 
“ What is it? ” cried Lucie, affrighted. “ Hush ! The soldiers’ swords 
are sharpened there,” said Mr. Lorry. “ The place is national prop- 
erty now, and used as a kind of armory, my love.” 

Twice more in all; but, the last spell of work was feeble and fitful. 
Soon afterwards the day began to dawn, and he softly detached himself 
from the clasping hand, and cautiously looked out again. A man, so 
besmeared that he might have been a sorely wounded soldier creeping 
back to consciousness on a field of slain, was rising from the pavement 
by the side of the grindstone, and looking about him with a vacant 
air. Shortly this worn-out murderer descried in the imperfect light 


254 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


one of the carriages of Monseigneur, and, staggering to that gorgeous 
vehicle, climbed in at the door, and shut himself up to take his rest 
on its dainty cushions. 

The great grindstone. Earth, had turned when Mr. Lorry looked 
out again, and the sun was red on the court-yard. But, the lesser 
grindstone stood alone there in the calm morning air, with a red upon 
it that the sun had never given, and would never take away. 


CHAPTER III 


THE SHADOW 

O NE of the first considerations which arose in the business mind of 
Mr. Lorry when business hours came round, was this : — that he 
had no right to imperil Tellson’s by sheltering the wife of an emi- 
grant prisoner under the Bank roof. His own possessions, safety, life, 
he would have hazarded for Lucie and her child, without a moment’s 
demur; but the great trust he held was not his own, and as to that busi- 
ness charge he was a strict man of business. 

At first, his mind reverted to Defarge, and he thought of finding out 
the wine-shop again and taking counsel with its master in reference to the 
safest dwelling-place in the distracted state of the city. But, the same 
consideration that suggested him, repudiated him; he lived in the most 
violent Quarter, and doubtless was influential there, and deep in its 
dangerous workings. 

Noon coming, and the Doctor not returning, and every minute’s 
delay tending to compromise Tellson’s, Mr. Lorry advised with Lucie. 
She said that her father had spoken of hiring a lodging for a short 
term, in that Quarter, near the Banking-house. As there was no busi- 
ness objection to this, and as he foresaw that even if it were all well 
with Charles, and he were to be released, he could not hope to leave 
the city, Mr. Lorry went out in quest of such a lodging, and found a 
suitable one, high up in a removed by-street where the closed blinds 
in all the other windows of a high melancholy square of building marked 
deserted homes. 

To this lodging he at once removed Lucie and her child, and Miss 
Pross ; giving them what comfort he could, and much more than he had 
himself. He left Jerry with them, as a figure to fill a doorway that 
would bear considerable knocking on the head, and returned to his 
own occupations. A disturbed and doleful mind he brought to bear 
upon them, and slowly and heavily the day lagged on with him. 

It wore itself out, and wore him out with it, until the Bank closed. 
He was again alone in his room of the previous night, considering 

25B 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


256 

what to do next, when he heard a foot upon the stair. In a few mo- 
ments, a man stood in his presence, who, with a keenly observant look 
at him, addressed him by his name. 

“ Your servant,” said Mr. Lorry. “ Do you know me? ” 

He was a strongly made man with dark curling hair, from forty-five 
to fifty years of age. For answer he repeated, without any change of 
emphasis, the words: 

“ Do you know me? ” 

“ I have seen you somewhere.” 

‘‘ Perhaps at my wine-shop?” 

Much interested and agitated, Mr. Lorry said: “You come from 
Doctor Manette? ” 

“Yes. I come from Doctor Manette.” 

“ And what says he? What does he send me? ” 

Defarge gave into his anxious hand, an open scrap of paper. It 
bore the words in the Doctor’s writing : 

“ Charles is safe, but I cannot safely leave this place yet. I have 
obtained the favor that the bearer has a short note from Charles 
to his wife. Let the bearer see his wife.” 

It was dated from La Force, within an hour. 

“ Will you accompany me,” said Mr. Lorry, joyfully relieved after 
reading this note aloud, “ to where his wife resides?*” 

“ Yes,” returned Defarge. 

Scarcely noticing as yet, in what a curiously reserved and mechanical 
way Defarge spoke, Mr. Lorry put on his hat and they went down into 
the court-yard. There, they found two women; one, knitting. 

“‘Madame Defarge, surely! ” said Mr. Lorry, who had left her in 
exactly the same attitude some seventeen years ago. 

“ It is she,” observed her husband. 

“ Does Madame go with us?” inquired Mr. Lorry, seeing that she 
moved as they moved. 

“ Yes. That she may be able to recognize the faces and know the 
persons. It is for their safety.” 

Beginning to be struck by Defarge’s manner, Mr. Lorry looked 
dubiously at him, and led the way. Both the women followed; the 
second woman being The Vengeance. 


THE SHADOW 257 

They passed through the intervening streets as quickly as they might, 
ascended the staircase of the new domicile, were admitted by Jerry, 
and found Lucie weeping, alone. She was thrown into a transport 
by the tidings Mr. Lorry gave her of her husband, and clasped the 
hand that delivered his note — little thinking what it had been doing 
near him in the night, and might, but for a chance, have done to him. 

Dearest, ^Take courage. I am well, and your father has in- 
fluence around me. You cannot answer this. Kiss our child for me.” 

That was all the writing. It was so much, however, to her who 
received it, that she turned from Defarge to his wife, and kissed 
one of the hands that knitted. It was a passionate, loving, thankful, 
womanly action, but the hand made no response — dropped cold and 
heavy, and took to its knitting again. 

There was something in its touch that gave Lucie a check. She 
stopped in the act of putting the note in her bosom, and, with her 
hands yet at her neck, looked terrified at Madame Defarge. Madame 
Defarge met the lifed eyebrows and forehead with a cold, impassive 
stare. 

“ My dear,” said Mr. Lorry, striking in to explain; “ there are fre- 
quent risings in the streets ; and, although it is not likely they will ever 
trouble you, Madame Defarge wishes to see those whom she has the 
power to protect at such times, to the end that she may know them 
— that she may identify them, I believe,” said Mr. Lorry, rather halt- 
ing in his reassuring words, as the stony manner of all the three im- 
pressed itself upon him more and more, “ I state the case, Citizen 
Defarge? ” 

Defarge looked gloomily at his wife, and gave no other answer 
than a gruff sound of acquiescence. 

“ You had better, Lucie,” said Mr. Lorry, doing all he could to 
propitiate, by tone and manner, “ have the dear child here, and our 
good Pross. Our good Pross, Defarge, is an English lady, and knows 
no French.” 

The lady in question, whose rooted conviction that she was more than 
a match for any foreigner, was not to be shaken by distress and danger, 
appeared with folded arms, and observed in English to The Ven- 
geance, whom her eyes first encountered, “Well, I am sure. Boldface! 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


25S 

I hope you are pretty well ! ” She also bestowed a British cough 
on Madame Defarge; but, neither of the two took much heed of 
her. 

“Is that his child?” said Madame Defarge, stopping in her work 
for the first time, and pointing her knitting-needle at little Lucie as if 
it were the finger of Fate. 

“Yes, madame,” answered Mr. Lorry; “ this is our poor prisoner’s 
darling daughter, and only child.” 

The shadow attendant on Madame Defarge and her party seemed 
to fall so threatening and dark on the child, that her mother instinct- 
ively kneeled on the ground beside her, and held her to her breast. The 
shadow attendant on Madame Defarge and her party seemed then to 
fall, threatening and dark, on both the mother and the child. 

“ It is enough, my husband,” said Madame Defarge. “ I have seen 
them. We may go.” 

But, the suppressed manner had enough of menace in it — not visible 
and presented, but indistinct and withheld — to alarm Lucie into saying, 
as she laid her appealing hand on Madame Defarge’s dress: 

“ You will be good to my poor husband. You will do him no 
harm. You will help me tO' see him if you can? ” 

“ Your husband is not my business here,” returned Madame De- 
farge, looking down at her with perfect composure. “ It is the daugh- 
ter of your father who is my business here.” 

“ For my sake, then, be merciful to my husband. For my child’s 
sake ! She will put her hands together and pray you to be merciful. 
We are more afraid of you than of these others.” 

Madame Defarge received it as a compliment, and looked at her 
husband. Defarge, who had been uneasily biting his thumb-nail and 
looking at her, collected his face into a sterner expression. 

“What is it that your husband says in that little letter?” asked 
Madame Defarge, with a lowering smile. “ Influence; he says some- 
thing touching influence? ” 

“ That my father,” said Lucie, hurriedly taking the paper from her 
breast, but with her alarmed eyes on her questioner and not on it, 
“ has much influence around him.” 

“ Surely it will release him! ” said Madame Defarge. “ Let it do 
so.” 

“ As a wife and mother,” cried Lucie, most earnestly, “ I implore you 


THE SHADOW 


259 


to have pity on me and not to exercise any power that you possess, 
against my innocent husband, but to use it in his behalf. O sister- 
woman, think of me. As a wife and mother I ” 

Madame Defarge looked, coldly as ever, at the suppliant, and said, 
turning to her friend The Vengeance: 

The wives and mothers we have been used to see, since we were as 
little as this child, and much less, have not been greatly considered? 
We have known their husbands and fathers laid in prison and kept 
from them, often enough? All our lives, we have seen our sister- 
women suffer, in themselves and in their children, poverty, nakedness, 
hunger, thirst, sickness, misery, oppression and neglect of all kinds?” 

“ We have seen nothing else,” returned The Vengeance. 

“ We have borne this a long time,” said Madame Defarge, turning 
her eyes again upon Lucie. “ Judge you ! Is it likely that the trouble 
of one wife and mother would be much to us now? ” 

She resumed her knitting and went out. The Vengeance followed. 
Defarge went last, and closed the door. 

“ Courage, my dear Lucie,” said Mr. Lorry, as he raised her. 
“ Courage, courage I So far all goes well with us — much, much bet- 
ter than it has of late gone with many poor souls. Cheer up, and have 
a thankful heart.” 

“ I am not thankless, I hope, but that dreadful woman seems to 
throw a shadow on me and on all my hopes.” 

“Tut, tut!” said Mr. Lorry; “what is this despondency in the 
brave little breast ? A shadow indeed 1 No substance in it, Lucie.” 

But the shadow of the manner of these Defarges was dark upon 
himself, for all that, and in his secret mind it troubled him greatly. 


CHAPTER IV 


CALM IN STORM 

D octor MANETTE did not return until the morning of the 
fourth day of his absence. So much of what had happened in 
that dreadful time as could be kept from the knowledge of Lucie was 
so well concealed from her, that not until long afterwards, when France 
and she were far apart, did she know that eleven hundred defenseless 
prisoners of both sexes and all ages had been killed by the populace; 
that four days and nights had been darkened by this deed of horror; and 
that the air around her had been tainted by the slain. She only knew 
that there had been an attack upon the prisons, that all political prison- 
ers had been in danger, and that some had been dragged out by the 
crowd and murdered. 

To Mr. Lorry, the Doctor communicated under an injunction of 
secrecy on which he had no need to dwell, that the crowd had taken 
him through a scene of carnage to the prison of La Force. That, in 
the prison he had found a self-appointed Tribunal sitting, before which 
the prisoners were brought singly, and by which they were rapidly 
ordered to be put forth to be massacred, or to be released, or (in a 
few cases) to be sent back to their cells. That, presented by his con- 
ductors to this Tribunal, he had announced himself by name and pro- 
fession as having been for eighteen years a secret and unaccused prisoner 
in the Bastille; that, one of the body so sitting judgment had risen 
and identified him, and that this man was Defarge. 

That, hereupon he had ascertained, through the registers on the 
table, that his son-in-law was among the living prisoners, and had 
pleaded hard to the Tribunal — of whom some members were asleep 
and some awake, some dirty with murder and some clean, some sober 
and some not — for his life and liberty. That, in the first frantic greet- 
ings lavished on himself as a notable sufferer under the overthrown 
system, it had been accorded to him to have Charles Darnay brought 
before the lawless Court, and examined. That, he seemed on the point 

260 


26 i 


CALM IN STORM 

of being at once released, when the tide in his favor met with some 
unexplained check (not intelligible to the Doctor), which led to a few 
words of secret conference. That, the man sitting as President had 
then informed Doctor Manette that the prisoner must remain in 
custody, but should, for his sake, be held inviolate in safe custody. 
That, immediately on a signal, the prisoner was removed to the in- 
terior of the prison again ; but, that he, the Doctor, had then so strongly 
pleaded for permission to remain and assure himself that his son-in-law 
was, through no malice or mischance, delivered to the concourse whose 
murderous yells outside the gate had often drowned the proceedings, 
that he had obtained the permission, and had remained in that Hall 
of Blood until the danger was over. 

The sights he had seen there, with brief snatches of food and sleep 
by intervals, shall remain untold. The mad joy over the prisoners 
who were saved, had astounded him scarcely less than the mad ferocity 
against those who were cut to pieces. One prisoner there was, he said, 
who had been discharged into the street free, but at whom a mistaken 
savage had thrust a pike as he passed out. Being besought to go to him 
and dress the wound, the Doctor had passed out at the same gate, and 
had found him in the arms of a company of Samaritans, who were seated 
on the bodies of their victims. With an inconsistency as monstrous as 
anything in this awful nightmare, they had helped the healer, and 
tended the wounded man with the gentlest solicitude — had made a 
litter for him and escorted him carefully from the spot — had then 
caught up their weapons and plunged anew into a butchery so dread- 
ful, that the Doctor had covered his eyes with his hands, and swooned 
away in the midst of it. 

As Mr. Lorry received these confidences, and as he watched the 
face of his friend now sixty-two years of age, a misgiving arose within 
him that such dread experiences would revive the old danger. But, 
he had never seen his friend in his present aspect; he had never at all 
known him in his present character. For the first time the Doctor felt, 
now, that his suffering was strength and power. For the first time he 
felt that in that sharp fire, he had slowly forged the iron which could 
break the prison door of his daughter’s husband, and deliver him. “ It 
all tended to a good end, my friend; it was not mere waste and ruin. 
As my beloved child was helpful in restoring me to myself, I will be 
helpful now in restoring the dearest part of herself to her; by the 


262 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


aid of Heaven I will do it!” Thus, Doctor Manette. And when 
Jarvis Lorry saw the kindled eyes, the resolute face, the calm strong 
look and bearing of the man whose life always seemed to him to have 
been stopped, like a clock, for so many years, and then set going again 
with an energy which had lain dormant during the cessation of its use- 
fulness, he believed. 

Greater things than the Doctor had at that time to contend with, 
would have yielded before his persevering purpose. While he kept 
himself in his place, as a physician, whose business was with all degrees 
of mankind, bond and free, rich and poor, bad and good, he used his 
personal influence so wisely, that he was soon the inspecting physician of 
three prisons, and among them of La Force. He could now assure 
Lucie that her husband was no longer confined alone, but was mixed 
with the general body of prisoners; he saw her husband weekly, and 
brought sweet messages to her, straight from his lips; sometimes her 
husband himself sent a letter to her (though never by the Doctor’s 
hand), but she was not permitted to write to him: for, among the many 
wild suspicions of plots in the prisons, the wildest of all pointed at 
emigrants who were known to have made friends or permanent con- 
nections abroad. 

This new life of the Doctor’s was an anxious life, no doubt; still, the 
sagacious Mr. Lorry saw that there was a new sustaining pride in it. 
Nothing unbecoming tinged the pride; it was a natural and worthy 
one; but he observed it as a curiosity. The Doctor knew, that up to 
that time, his imprisonment had been associated in the minds of his 
daughter and his friend, with his personal affliction, deprivation, and 
weakness. Now that this was changed, and he knew himself to be 
invested through that old trial with forces to which they both looked 
for Charles’s ultimate safety and deliverance, he became so far exalted 
by the change, that he took the lead and direction, and required them 
as the weak, to trust to him as the strong. The preceding relative posi- 
tions of himself and Lucie were reversed, yet only as the liveliest grati- 
tude and affection could reverse them, for he could have had no pride 
but in rendering some service to her who had rendered so much to him. 
“ All curious to see,” thought Mr. Lorry, in his amiably shrewd way, 
“ but all natural and right; so, take the lead, my dear friend, and keep 
it; it couldn’t be in better hands.” 

But, though the Doctor tried hard, and never ceased trying, to get 


CALM IN STORM 263 

Charles Darnay set at liberty, or at least to get him brought to trial, 
the public current of the time set too strong and fast for him. The 
new era began; the king was tried, doomed, and beheaded; the Republic 
of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death, declared for victory or death 
against the world in arms; the black flag waved night and day from 
the great towers of Notre Dame; three hundred thousand men, sum- 
moned to rise against the tyrants of the earth, rose from all the varying 
soils of France, as if the dragon’s teeth had been sown broadcast, and 
had yielded fruit equally on hill and plain, on rock, in gravel, and 
alluvial mud, under the bright sky of the South and under the clouds of 
the North, in fell and forest, in the vineyards and the olive-grounds and 
among the cropped grass and the stubble of the corn, along the fruit- 
ful banks of the broad rivers, and in the sand of the sea-shore. *What 
private solicitude could rear itself against the deluge of the Year One of 
Liberty — the deluge rising from below, not falling from above, and 
with the windows of Heaven shut, not opened! 

There was no pause, no pity, no peace, no interval of relenting rest, 
no measurement of time. Though days and nights circled as regularly 
as when time was young, and the evening and morning were the first 
day, other count of time there was none. Hold of it was lost in the 
raging fever of a nation, as it is in the fever of one patient. Now, 
breaking the unnatural silence of a whole city, the executioner showed 
the people the head of the king — and now, it seemed almost in the 
same breath, the head of his fair wife which had had eight weary months 
of imprisoned widowhood and misery, to turn it gray. 

And yet, observing the strange law of contradiction which obtains 
in all such cases, the time was long, while it flamed by so fast. A 
revolutionary tribunal in the capital, and forty or fifty thousand revolu- 
tionary committees all over the land; a law of the Suspected, which 
struck away all security for liberty or life, and delivered over any 
good and innocent person to any bad and guilty one; prisons gorged 
with people who had committed no offense, and could obtain no hear- 
ing; these things became the established order and nature of appointed 
things, and seemed to be ancient usage before they were many weeks 
old. Above all, one hideous figure grew as familiar as if it had been 
before the general gaze from the foundations of the world — the figure 
of the sharp female called La Guillotine. 

It was the popular theme for jests; it was the best cure for head- 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


264 

ache, it infallibly prevented the hair from turning gray, it imparted a 
peculiar delicacy to the complexion, it was the National Razor which 
shaved close; who kissed La Guillotine, looked through the little win- 
dow and sneezed into the sack. It was the sign of the regeneration of 
the human race. It superseded the Cross. Models of it were worn 
on breasts from which the Cross was discarded, and it was bowed down 
to and believed in where the Cross was denied. 

It sheared off heads so many, that it, and the ground it most polluted, 
were a rotten red. It was taken to pieces, like a toy-puzzle for a young 
Devil, and was put together again when the occasion wanted it. It 
hushed the eloquent, struck down the powerful, abolished the beautiful 
and good. Twenty-two friends of high public mark, twenty-one living 
and one dead, it had lopped the heads off, in one morning, in as many 
minutes. The name of the strong man of Old Scripture had descended 
to the chief functionary who worked it; but, so armed, he was stronger 
than his namesake, and blinder, and tore away the gates of God’s own 
Temple every day. 

Among these terrors, and the brood belonging to them, the Doctor 
walked with a steady head, confident in his power, cautiously persistent 
in his end, never doubting that he would save Lucie’s husband at last. 
Yet the current of the time swept by, so strong and deep, and carried 
the time away so fiercely, that Charles had laid in prison one year and 
three months when the Doctor was thus steady and confident. So much 
more wicked and distracted had the Revolution grown in that December 
month, that the rivers of the South were encumbered with the bodies of 
the violently drowned by night, and prisoners were shot in lines and 
squares under the southern wintry sun. Still, the Doctor walked among 
the terrors with a steady head. No man better known than he, in 
Paris at that day; no man in a stranger situation. Silent, humane, 
indispensable in hospital and prison, using his art equally among assassins 
and victims, he was a man apart. In the exercise of his skill, the ap- 
pearance and the story of the Bastille Captive removed him from all 
other men. He was not suspected or brought in question, any more 
^than if he had indeed been recalled to life some eighteen years before, 
or were a Spirit moving among mortals. 


CHAPTER V 


THE WOOD-SAWYER 

O NE year and three months. During all that time Lucie was never 
sure, from hour to hour, but that the Guillotine would strike 
off her husband s head next day. Every day, through the stony streets, 
the tumbrils now jolted heavily, filled with Condemned. Lovely girls; 
bright women, brown-haired, black-haired, and gray; youths; stalwart 
men and old, gentle born and peasant born, all red wine for La Guillo- 
tine, all daily brought into light from the dark cellars of the loathsome 
prisons, and carried to her through the streets to slake her devouring 
thirst. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death;— the last, much the 
easiest to bestow, O Guillotine ! 

If the suddenness of her calamity, and the whirling wheels of the 
time, had stunned the Doctor’s daughter into awaiting the result in 
idle despair, it would but have been with her as it was with many. 
But, from the hour when she had taken the white head to her fresh 
young bosom in the garret of Saint Antoine, she had been true to her 
duties. She was truest to them in the season of trial, as all the quietly 
loyal and good will always be. 

As soon as they were established in their new residence, and her 
father had entered on the routine of his avocations, she arranged the 
little household as exactly as if her husband had been there. Every- 
thing had its appointed place and its appointed time. Little Lucie 
she taught, as regularly, as if they had all been united in their English 
home. The slight devices with which she cheated herself into the show 
of a belief that they would soon be reunited — the little preparations 
for his speedy return, the setting aside of his chair and his books — 
these, and the solemn prayer at night for one dear prisoner especially, 
among the many unhappy souls in prison and the shadow of death — 
were almost the only outspoken reliefs of her heavy mind. 

She did not greatly alter in appearance. The plain dark dresses, akin 
to mourning dresses, which she and her child wore, were as neat and 
as well attended to as the brighter clothes of happy days. She lost 

,265 


266 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


her color, and the old and intent expression was a constant, not an 
occasional, thing; otherwise, she remained very pretty and comely. 
Sometimes, at night on kissing her father, she would burst into the 
grief she had repressed all day, and would say that her sole reliance, 
under Heaven, was on him. He always resolutely answered: “ Noth- 
ing can happen to him without my knowledge, and I know that I can 
save him, Lucie.” 

They had not made the round of their changed life many weeks, 
when her father said to her, on coming home one evening: 

“ My dear, there is an upper window in the prison, to which Charles 
can sometimes gain access at three in the afternoon. When he can get 
to it — which depends on many uncertainties and incidents — he might 
see you in the street, he thinks, if you stood in a certain place that I can 
show you. But you will not be able to see him, my poor child, and even 
if you could, it would be unsafe for you to make a sign of recognition.” 

“ O show me the place, my father, and I will go there every day.” 

From that time, in all weathers, she waited there two hours. As the 
clock struck two, she was there, and at four she turned resignedly away. 
When it was not too wet or inclement for her child to be with her, 
they went together ; at other times she was alone ; but, she never missed 
a single day. 

y It was the dark and dirty corner of a small winding street. The hovel 
of a cutter of wood into lengths for burning, was the only house at 
that end; all else was wall. On the third day of her being there, he 
noticed her. 

“ Good day, citizeness.” 

“ Good day, citizen.” 

This mode of address was now prescribed by decree. It had been 
established voluntarily some time ago, among the more thorough pa- 
triots; but, was now law for everybody. 

“Walking here again, citizeness?” 

“ You see me, citizen I ” 

The wood-sawyer, who was a little man with a redundancy of gesture 
(he had once been a mender of roads), cast a glance at the prison, 
pointed at the prison, and putting his ten fingers before his face to 
represent bars, peeped through them jocosely. 

“ But it’s not my business,” said he. And went on sawing his 
wood. 


267 


THE WOOD-SAWYER 

Next day he was looking out for her, and accosted her the moment 
she appeared. 

“What? Walking here again, citizeness?” 

“ Yes, citizen.” 

Ah! A child too! Your mother, is it not, my little citizeness? ” 

Do I say yes, mamma?” whispered little Lucie, drawing close 
to her. 

“ Yes, dearest.” 

“ Yes, citizen.” 

Ah ! But it s not my business. My work is my business. See 
my saw ! I call it my little Guillotine. La, la, la ; La, la, la ! And off 
his head comes ! ” 

The billet fell as he spoke, and he threw it into a basket. 

“ I call myself the Samson of the firewood guillotine. See here 
again! Loo, loo, loo; Loo, loo, loo! And off her head comes! 
Now, a child. Tickle, tickle; Pickle, pickle! And off its head comes. 
All the family! ” 

Lucie shuddered as he threw two more billets into his basket, but 
it was impossible to be there while the wood-sawyer was at work, and 
not be in his sight. Thenceforth, to secure his good-will, she always 
spoke to him first, and often gave him drink-money, which he readily 
received. 

He was an inquisitive fellow, and sometimes when she had quite 
forgotten him in gazing at the prison roof and grates, and in lifting 
her heart up to her husband, she would come to herself to find him 
looking at her, with his knee on his bench and his saw stopped in its 
work. “ But it’s not my business! ” he would generally say at those 
times, and would briskly fall to his sawing again. 

In all weathers, in the snow and frost of winter, in the bitter winds 
of spring, in the hot sunshine of summer, in the rains of autumn, and 
again in the snow and frost of winter, Lucie passed two hours of every 
day at this place; and every day on leaving it, she kissed the prison 
wall. Her husband saw her (so she learned from her father) it might 
be once in five or six times : it might be twice or thrice running : it might 
be, not for a week or a fortnight together. It was enough that he 
could and did see her when the chances served, and on that possibility 
she would have waited out the day, seven days a week. 

These occupations brought her round to the December month, wherein 


268 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


her father walked among the terrors with a steady head. On a lightly- 
snowing afternoon she arrived at the usual corner. It was a day of 
some wild rejoicing, and a festival. She had seen the houses, as she 
came along, decorated with little pikes, and with little red caps stuck 
upon them; also, with tricolored ribbons; also, with the standard in- 
scription (tricolored letters were the favorite), Republic One and In- 
divisible. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death! 

The miserable shop of the wood-sawyer was so small, that its whole 
surface furnished very indifferent space for this legend. He had got 
somebody to scrawl it up for him, however, who had squeezed Death 
in with most inappropriate difficulty. On his house-top, he displayed 
pike and cap, as a good citizen must, and in a window he had stationed 
his saw inscribed as his “ Little Sainte Guillotine ” — for the great sharp 
female was by that time popularly canonized. His shop was shut and 
he was not there, which was a relief to Lucie, and left her quite alone. 

But, he was not far off, for presently she heard a troubled move- 
ment and a shouting coming along, which filled her with fear. A mo- 
ment afterwards, and a throng of people came pouring round the 
corner by the prison wall, in the midst of whom was the wood-sawyer 
hand in hand with The Vengeance. There could not be fewer than 
five hundred people, and they were dancing like five thousand demons. 
There was no other music than their own singing. They danced to 
the popular Revolution song, keeping a ferocious time that was like 
a gnashing of teeth in unison. Men and women danced together, women 
danced together, men danced together, as hazard had brought them 
together. At first, they were a mere storm of coarse red caps and 
coarse woollen rags; but, as they filled the place, and stopped to dance 
about Lucie, some ghastly apparition of a dance-figure gone raving 
mad arose among them. They advanced, retreated, struck at one an- 
other’s hands, clutched at one another’s heads, spun round alone, caught 
one another and spun round in pairs, until many of them dropped. 
While those were down, the rest linked hand in hand and all spun 
round together: then the ring broke, and in separate rings of two and 
four they turned and turned until they all stopped at once, began again, 
struck, clutched, and tore, and then reversed the spin, and all spun round 
another way. Suddenly they stopped again, paused, struck out the 
time afresh, formed into lines the width of the public way, and, with 
their heads low down and their hands high up, swooped screaming 


THE WOOD-SAWYER 


269 


off. No fight could have been half so terrible as this dance. It was 
so emphatically a fallen sport — a something, once innocent, delivered 
over to all devilry — a healthy pastime changed into a means of anger- 
ing the blood, bewildering the senses, and steeling the heart. Such 
grace as was visible in it, made it the uglier, showing how warped and 
perverted all things good by nature were become. The maidenly bosom 
bared to this, the pretty almost-child’s head thus distracted, the delicate 
foot mincing in this slough of blood and dirt, were types of the dis- 
jointed time. 

This was the Carmagnole. As it passed, leaving Lucie frightened 
and bewildered in the doorway of the wood-sawyer’s house, the feathery 
snow fell as quietly and lay as white and soft, as if it had never been. 

“ Oh my father ! ” for he stood before her when she lifted up the 
eyes she had momentarily darkened with her hand; “ such a cruel, bad 
sight.” 

“ I know, my dear, I know. I have seen it many times. Don’t be 
frightened ! Not one of them would harm you ! ” 

“ I am not frightened for myself, my father. But when I think of 
my husband, and the mercies of these people — ” 

“ We will set him above their mercies very soon. I left him climb- 
ing to the window, and I came to tell you. There is no one here to 
see. You may kiss your hand towards that highest shelving roof.” 

“ I do so, father, and I send him my Soul with it! ” 

“ You cannot see him, my poor dear? ” 

“ No, father,” said Lucie, yearning and weeping as she kissed her 
hand, “ no.” 

A footstep in the snow. Madame Defarge. “ I salute you, citi- 
zeness,” from the Doctor. “ I salute you, citizen.” This in passing. 
Nothing more. Madame Defarge gone, like a shadow over the white 

road. , . r 

“ Give me your arm, my love. Pass from here with an air of cheer- 
fulness and courage, for his sake. That was well done ; they had 
left the spot; “ it shall not be in vain. Charles is summoned for to- 
morrow.” 

“ For to-morrow 1 ” 

“ There is no time to lose. I am well prepared, but there are pre- 
cautions to be taken, that could not be taken until he was actually sum- 
moned before the Tribunal. He has not received the notice yet, but 


270 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


I know that he will presently be summoned for to-morrow, and re- 
moved to the Conciergerie ; I have timely information. You are not 
afraid? ” 

She could scarcely answer, “ I trust in you.” 

“ Do so, implicitly. Your suspense is nearly ended, my darling; 
he shall be restored to you within a few hours; I have encompassed 
him with every protection. I must see Lorry.” 

He stopped. There was a heavy lumbering of wheels within hear- 
ing. They both knew too well what it meant. One. Two. Three. 
Three tumbrils faring away with their dread loads over the hushing 
snow. 

“ I must see Lorry,” the Doctor repeated, turning her another way. 

The staunch old gentleman was still in his trust; had never left it. 
He and his books were in frequent requisition as to property confiscated 
and made national. What he could save for the owners, he saved. 
No better man living to hold fast by what Tellson’s had in keeping, 
and to hold his peace. 

A murky red and yellow sky, and a rising mist from the Seine, de- 
noted the approach of darkness. It was almost dark when they ar- 
rived at the Bank. The stately residence of Monseigneur was alto- 
gether blighted and deserted. Above a heap of dust and ashes in the 
court, ran the letters: National Property. Republic One and Indivisi- 
ble. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death. 

Who could that be with Mr. Lorry — the owner of the riding-coat 
upon the chair — who must not be seen? From whom newly arrived, 
did he come out, agitated and surprised, to take his favorite in his 
arms? To whom did he appear to repeat her faltering words, when, 
raising his voice and turning his head towards the door of the room 
from which he had issued, he said: “ Removed to the Conciergerie, and 
summoned for to-morrow?” 


CHAPTER VI 


TRIUMPH 

T he dread Tribunal of five Judges, Public Prosecutor, and de- 
termined Jury, sat every day. Their lists went forth every eve- 
ning, and were read out by the gaolers of the various prisons to their 
prisoners. The standard gaoler-joke was, “ Come out and listen to 
the Evening Paper, you inside there ! ” 

“ Charles Evremonde, called Darnay! ” 

So at last began the Evening Paper at La Force. 

When a name was called, its owner stepped apart into a spot reserved 
for those who were announced as being thus fatally recorded. Charles 
Evremonde, called Darnay, had reason to know the usage; he had seen 
hundreds pass away. 

His bloated gaoler, who wore spectacles to read with, glanced over 
them to assure himself that he had taken his place, and went through 
the list, making a similar short pause at each name. There were 
twenty-three names, but only twenty were responded to; for one of 
the prisoners so summoned had died in gaol and been forgotten, and 
two had already been guillotined and forgotten. The list was read, 
in the vaulted chamber where Darnay had seen the associated prisoners 
on the night of his arrival. Every one of those had perished in the 
massacre ; every human creature he had since cared for and parted with, 
had died on the scaffold. 

There were hurried words of farewell and kindness, but the parting 
was soon over. It was the incident of every day, and the society of La 
Force were engaged in the preparation of some games of forfeits and a 
little concert, for that evening. They crowded to the grates and shed 
tears there; but, twenty places in the projected entertainments had 
to be refilled, and the time was, at best, short to the lock-up hour, when 
the common rooms and corridors would be delivered over to the great 
dogs who kept watch there through the night. The prisoners were 
far from insensible or unfeeling; their ways arose out of the condition of 
the time. Similarly, though with a subtle difference, a species of fervor 

271 


272 


A TALE OF TPVO CITIES 


or intoxication, known, without doubt, to have led some persons to brave 
the guillotine unnecessarily, and to die by it, was not mere boastfulness, 
but a wild infection of the wildly shaken public mind. In seasons of 
pestilence, some of us will have a secret attraction to the disease — 
a terrible passing Inclination to die of it. And all of us have like won- 
ders hidden in our breasts, only needing circumstances to evoke them. 

The passage to the Conclergerie was short and dark; the night in 
its vermin-haunted cells was long and cold. Next day, fifteen prisoners 
were put to the bar before Charles Darnay’s name was called. All 
the fifteen were condemned, and the trials of the whole occupied an 
hour and a half. 

“ Charles Evremonde, called Darnay,” was at length arraigned. 

His judges sat upon the Bench in feathered hats; but the rough red 
cap and tricolored cockade was the head-dress otherwise prevailing. 
Looking at the Jury and the turbulent audience, he might have thought 
that the usual order of things was reversed, and that the felons were 
trying the honest men. The lowest, cruelest, and worst populace of a 
city, never without its quantity of low, cruel, and bad, were the direct- 
ing spirits of the scene : noisily commenting, applauding, disapproving, 
anticipating, and precipitating the result, without a check. Of the men, 
the greater part were armed in various ways; of the women, some wore 
knives, some daggers, some ate and drank as they looked on, many 
knitted. Among these last, was one, with a spare piece of knitting 
under her arm as she worked. She was in a front row, by the side of a 
man whom he had never seen since his arrival at the Barrier, but whom 
he directly remembered as Defarge. He noticed that she once or twice 
whispered in his ear, and that she seem*ed to be his wife ; but, what he 
most noticed in the two figures was, that although they were posted as 
close to himself as they could be, they never looked towards him. They 
seemed to be waiting for something with a dogged determination, and 
they looked at the Jury, but at nothing else. Under the President sat 
Doctor Manette, in his usual quiet dress. As well as the prisoner could 
see, he and Mr. Lorry were the only men there, unconnected with the 
Tribunal, who wore their usual clothes, and had not assumed the coarse 
garb of the Carmagnole. 

Charles Evremonde, called Darnay, was accused by the public prose- 
cutor as an emigrant, whose life was forfeit to the Republic, under the 
decree which banished all emigrants on pain of Death. It was nothing 


TRIUMPH 273 

that the decree bore date since his return to France. There he was, 
and there was the decree; he had been taken in France, and his head 
was demanded. 

audience. “An enemy to the Re- 
public ! 

The President rang his bell to silence those cries, and asked the 
prisoner whether it was not true that he had lived many years in 
England? 

Undoubtedly it was. 

Was he not an emigrant then? What did he call himself? 

Not an emigrant, he hoped, within the sense and spirit of the law. 

Why not? the President desired to know. 

^ Because he had voluntarily relinquished a title that was distasteful to 
him, and a station that was distasteful to him, and had left his country 
he submitted before the word emigrant in the present acceptation by 
the Tribunal was in use — to live by his own industry in England, rather 
than on the industry of the overladen people of France. 

What proof had he of this? 

He handed in the names of two witnesses; Theophile Gabelle, and 
Alexandre Manette. 

But he had married in England? the President reminded him. 

True, but not an English woman. 

A citizeness of France? 

Yes. By birth. 

Her name and family? 

“ Lucie Manette, only daughter of Doctor Manette, the good physi- 
cian who sits there.” 

This answer had a happy effect upon the audience. Cries in exalta- 
tion of the well-known good physician rent the hall. So capriciously 
were the people moved, that tears immediately rolled down several 
ferocious countenances which had been glaring at the prisoner a moment 
before, as if with impatience to pluck him out into the streets and 
kill him. 

On these few steps of his dangerous way, Charles Darnay had set his 
foot according to Doctor Manette’s reiterated instructions. The same 
cautious counsel directed every step that lay before him, and had pre- 
pared every inch of his road. 


274 A TALE OF TWO CITIES 

The President asked, why had he returned to France when he did, 
and not sooner? 

He had not returned sooner, he replied, simply because he had no 
means of living in France, save those he had resigned; whereas, in Eng- 
land, he lived by giving instruction in the French language and litera- 
ture. He had returned when he did, on the pressing and written en- 
treaty of a French citizen, who represented that his life was endan- 
gered by his absence. He had come back, to save a citizen’s life, and to 
bear his testimony, at whatever personal hazard, to the truth. Was 
that criminal in the eyes of the Republic? 

The populace cried enthusiastically, “ No ! ” and the President rang 
his bell to quiet them. Which it did not, for they continued to cry 
“ No! ” until they left off, of their own will. 

The President required the name of that citizen? The accused ex- 
plained that the citizen was his first witness. He also referred with 
confidence to the citizen’s letter, which had been taken from him at 
the Barrier, but which he did not doubt would be found among the 
papers then before the President. 

The Doctor had taken care that it should be there — had assured 
him that it would be there — and at this stage of the proceedings it 
was produced and read. Citizen Gabelle was called to confirm it, and 
did so. Citizen Gabelle hinted, with infinite delicacy and politeness, 
that in the pressure of business imposed on the Tribunal by the multi- 
tude of enemies of the Republic with which it had to deal, he had been 
slightly overlooked in his prison of the Abbaye — in fact, had rather 
passed out of the Tribunal’s patriotic remembrance — until three days 
ago; when he had been summoned before it, and had been set at liberty 
on the Jury’s declaring themselves satisfied that the accusation against 
him was answered, as to himself, by the surrender of the citizen Evre- 
monde, called Darnay. 

Doctor Manette was next questioned. His high personal popularity, 
and the clearness of his answers, made a great impression; but, as he 
proceeded, as he showed that the accused was his first friend on his 
release from his long imprisonment; that, the accused had remained 
in England, always faithful and devoted to his daughter and himself 
in their exile ; that, so far from being in favor with the Aristocrat gov- 
ernment there, he had actually been tried for his life by it, as the foe 
of England and a friend of the United States — as he brought these 


TRIUMPH 


275 

circumstances into view, with the greatest discretion and with the 
straightforward force of truth and earnestness, the Jury and the popu- 
lace became one. At last, when he appealed by name to Monsieur 
Lorry, an English gentleman then and there present, who, like himself, 
had been a witness on that English trial and could corroborate his ac- 
count of it, the Jury declared that they had heard enough, and that they 
were ready with their votes if the President were content to receive 
them. 

At every vote (the Jurymen voted aloud and individually), the 
populace set up a shout of applause. All the voices were in the prison- 
er’s favor, and the President declared him free. 

Then, began one of those extraordinary scenes with which the popu- 
lace gratified their fickleness, or their better impulses towards generosity 
and mercy, or which they regarded as some set-off against their swollen 
account of cruel rage. No man can decide now to which of these mo- 
tives such extraordinary scenes were referable; it is probable, to a blend- 
ing of all the three, with the second predominating. No sooner was 
the acquittal pronounced, than tears were shed as freely as blood at 
another time, and such fraternal embraces were bestowed upon the 
prisoner by as many of both sexes as could rush at him, that after his 
long and unwholesome confinement he was in danger of fainting from 
exhaustion ; none the less because he knew very well, that the very same 
people, carried by another current, would have rushed at him with the 
very same intensity, to rend him to pieces and strew him over the 
streets. 

His removal, to make way for other accused persons who were to be 
tried, rescued him from these caresses for the moment. Five were to 
be tried together, next, as enemies of the Republic, forasmuch as they 
had not assisted it by word or deed. So quick was the Tribunal to 
compensate itself and the nation for a chance lost, that these five came 
down to him before he left the place, condemned to die within twenty- 
four hours. The first of them told him so, with the customary prison 
sign of Death — a raised finger — and they all added in words, “ Long 
live the Republic ! ” 

The five had had, it is true, no audience to lengthen their proceedings, 
for when he and Doctor Manette emerged from the gate, there was 
a great crowd about it, in which there seemed to be every face he had 
seen in Court — except two, for which he looked in vain. On his com- 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


276 

ing out, the concourse made at him anew, weeping, embracing, and shout- 
ing, all by turns and all together, until the very tide of the river on the 
bank of which the mad scene was acted, seemed to run mad, like the 
people on the shore. 

They put him into a great chair they had among them, and which 
they had taken either out of the Court itself, or one of its rooms or 
passages. Over the chair they had thrown a red flag, and to the back 
of it they had bound a pike with a red cap on its top. In this car of 
triumph, not even the Doctor’s entreaties could prevent his being car- 
ried to his home on men’s shoulders, with a confused sea of red caps 
heaving about him, and casting up to sight from the stormy deep such 
wrecks of faces, that he more than once misdoubted his mind being in 
confusion, and that he was in the tumbril on his way to the Guillotine. 

In wild dreamlike procession, embracing whom they met and point- 
ing him out, they carried him on. Reddening the snowy streets with the 
prevailing Republican color, in winding and tramping through them, 
as they had reddened them below the snow with a deeper dye, they 
carried him thus into the court-yard of the building where he lived. 
Her father had gone on before, to prepare her, and when her husband 
stood upon his feet, she dropped insensible in his arms. 

As he held her to his heart and turned her beautiful head between his 
face and the brawling crowd, so that his tears and her lips might come 
together unseen, a few of the people fell to dancing. Instantly, all the 
rest fell to dancing, and the courtyard overflowed with the Carmagnole. 
Then, they elevated into the vacant chair a young woman from the 
crowd to be carried as the Goddess of Liberty, and then swelling and 
overflowing out into the adjacent streets, and along the river’s bank, 
and over the bridge, the Carmagnole absorbed them every one and 
whirled them away. 

After grasping the Doctor’s hand, as he stood victorious and proud 
before him; after grasping the hand of Mr. Lorry, who came panting 
in breathless from his struggle against the waterspout of the Car- 
magnole; after kissing little Lucie, who was lifted up to clasp her arms 
round his neck; and after embracing the ever zealous and faithful 
Pross who lifted her; he took his wife in his arms, and carried her up 
to their rooms. 

“Lucie I My own I I am safe.” 


TRIUMPH 


277 


“ O dearest Charles, let me thank God for this on my knees as I 
have prayed to Him.” 

They all reverently bowed their heads and hearts. When she was 
again in his arms, he said to her : 

“ And now speak to your father, dearest. No other man in all this 
France could have done what he has done for me.” 

She laid her head upon her father’s breast, as she had laid his poor 
head on her own breast, long, long ago. He was happy in the 
return he had made her, he was recompensed for his suffering, he was 
proud of his strength. ” You must not be weak, my darling,” he remon- 
strated; ” don’t tremble so. I have saved him.” 


CHAPTER VII 


A KNOCK AT THE DOOR 

I HAVE saved him.” It was not another of the dreams in which 
he had often come back; he was really here. And yet his wife 
trembled, and a vague but heavy fear was upon her. 

All the air around was so thick and dark, the people were so passion- 
ately revengeful and fitful, the innocent were so constantly put to death 
on vague suspicion and black malice, it was so impossible to forget 
that many as blameless as her husband and as dear to others as he was 
to her, every day shared the fate from which he had been clutched, 
that her heart could not be as lightened of its load as she felt it ought 
to be. The shadows of the wintry afternoon were beginning to fall, 
and even now the dreadful carts were rolling through the streets. Her 
mind pursued them, looking for him among the Condemned; and then 
she clung closer to his real presence and trembled more. 

Her father, cheering her, showed a compassionate superiority to this 
woman’s weakness, which was wonderful to see. No garret, no shoe- 
making, no One Hundred and Five, North Tower, now! He had ac- 
complished the task he had set himself, his promise was redeemed, he 
had saved Charles. Let them all lean upon him. 

Their housekeeping was of a very frugal kind; not only because that 
was the safest way of life, involving the least offense to the people, but 
because they were not rich, and Charles, throughout his imprisonment, 
had had to pay heavily for his bad food, and for his guard, and towards 
the living of the poorer prisoners. Partly on this account, and partly 
to avoid a domestic spy, they kept no servant; the citizen and citizeness 
who acted as porters at the court-yard gate, rendered them occasional 
service; and Jerry (almost wholly transferred to them by Lorry) had 
become their daily retainer, and had his bed there every night. 

It was an ordinance of the Republic One and Indivisible of Liberty, 
Equality, Fraternity, or Death, that on the door or door-post of every 
house, the name of every inmate must be legibly inscribed in letters of 

278 


A KNOCK AT THE DOOR 279 

a certain size, at a certain convenient height from the ground. Mr. 
Jerry Cruncher s name, therefore, duly embellished the door-post down 
below, and, as the afternoon shadows deepened, the owner of that name 
himself appeared, from over-looking a painter whom Doctor Manette 
had employed to add to the list the name of Charles Evremonde, called 
Darnay. 

In the universal fear and distrust that darkened the time, all the usual 
harmless ways of life were changed. In the Doctor’s little household, 
as in very many others, the articles of daily consumption that were 
wanted were purchased every evening, in small quantities and at various 
small shops. To avoid attracting notice, and to give as little occasion 
as possible for talk and envy, was the general desire. 

For some months past. Miss Pross and Mr. Cruncher had discharged 
the office of purveyors; the former carrying the money; the latter, the 
basket. Every afternoon at about the time when the public lamps were 
lighted, they fared forth on this duty, and made and brought home 
such purchases as were needful. Although Miss Pross, through her 
long association with a French family, might have known as much of 
their language as of her own, if she had had a mind, she had no mind 
in that direction; consequently she knew no more of that “ nonsense ” 
(as she was pleased to call it) than Mr. Cruncher did. So her manner 
of marketing was to plump a noun-substantive at the head of a shop- 
keeper without any introduction in the nature of an article, and, if it hap- 
pened not to be the name of the thing she wanted, to look round for 
that thing, lay hold of it, and hold on by it until the bargain was con- 
cluded. She always made a bargain for it, by holding up as a state- 
ment of its just price, one finger less than the merchant held up, what- 
ever his number might be. 

“ Now, Mr. Cruncher,” said Miss Pross, whose eyes were red with 
felicity; “ if you are ready, I am.” 

Jerry hoarsely professed himself at Miss Pross’s service. He had 
worn all his rust off long ago, but nothing would file his spiky head down. 

“ There’s all manner of things wanted,” said Miss Pross, ” and we 
shall have a precious time of it. We want wine, among the rest. Nice 
toasts these Red-heads will be drinking, wherever we buy it.” 

“ It will be much the same to your knowledge, miss, I should think,” 
retorted Jerry, ” whether they drink your health or the Old Un’s.” 

“ Who’s he? ” said Miss Pross. 


280 A TALE OF TWO CITIES 

Mr. Cruncher, with some diffidence, explained himself as meaning 
“ Old Nick’s.’’ 

“ Ha I ” said Miss Pross, “ it doesn’t need an interpreter to explain 
the meaning of these creatures. They have but one, and it’s Midnight 
Murder, and Mischief.” 

“ Hush, dear ! Pray, pray, be cautious ! ” cried Lucie. 

“ Yes, yes, yes, I ’ll be cautious,” said Miss Pross; “but I may say 
among ourselves, that I do hope there will be no oniony and tobaccoey 
smotherings in the form of embracings all around, going on in the 
Streets. Now, Ladybird, never you stir from that fire till I come back ! 
Take care of the dear husband you have recovered, and don’t move your 
pretty head from his shoulder as you have it now, till you see me again I 
May I ask a question. Doctor Manette, before I go? ” 

“ I think you may take that liberty,” the Doctor answered, smiling. 

“ For Gracious sake, don’t talk about Liberty; we have quite enough 
of that,” said Miss Pross. 

“ Hush, dear! Again? ” Lucie remonstrated. 

“ Well, my sweet,” said Miss Pross, nodding her head emphatically, 
“ the short and the long of it is, that I am a subject of His Most Gracious 
Majesty King George the Third,” Miss Pross curtseyed at the name, 
“ and as such, my maxim is, Confound their politics. Frustrate their knav- 
ish tricks. On him our hopes we fix, God save the King! ” 

Mr. Cruncher, in an access of loyalty, growlingly repeated the words 
after Miss Pross, like somebody at church. 

“ I am glad you have so much of the Englishman in you, though I 
wish you had never taken that cold in your voice,” said Miss Pross, ap- 
provingly. “But the question. Doctor Manette. Is there ” — it was 
the good creature’s way to affect to make light of anything that was a 
great anxiety with them all, and to come at it in this chance manner 
— “ is there any prospect yet, of our getting out of this place? ” 

“ I fear not yet. It would be dangerous for Charles yet.” 

“ Heigh-ho-hum ! ” said Miss Pross, cheerfully repressing a sigh as 
she glanced at her darling’s golden hair in the light of the fire, “ then 
we must have patience and wait, that’s all. We must hold up our 
heads and fight low, as my brother Solomon used to say. Now, Mr. 
Cruncher ! — Don’t you move. Ladybird! ” 

They went out, leaving Lucie, and her husband, her father, and the 
child, by a bright fire, Mr, Lorry was expected back presently from 


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28 i 


A KNOCK AT THE DOOR 

the Banking-house. Miss Pross had lighted the lamp, but had put it 
aside in a corner, that they might enjoy the firelight undisturbed. Lit- 
tie Lucie sat by her grandfather with her hands clasped through his 
arm; and he, in a tone not rising much above a whisper, began to tell 
her a story of a great and powerful Fairy who had opened a prison- 
wall and let out a captive who had once done the Fairy a service. All 
was subdued and quiet, and Lucie was more at ease than she had been. 

“ What is that? ” she cried, all at once. 

“ My dear! ” said her father, stopping in his story, and laying his 
hand on hers, command yourself. What a disordered state you are 
in 1 The least thing nothing — startles you 1 Y ou. your father’s 
daughter 1 ” 

I thought, my father,” said Lucie, excusing herself, with a pale 
face and in a faltering voice, “ that I heard strange feet upon the 
stairs.” 

“ My love, the staircase is as still as Death.” 

As he said the word, a blow was struck upon the door. 

“Oh, father, father. What can this be! Hide Charles. Save 
him! ” 

“ My child,” said the Doctor, rising, and laying his hand upon her 
shoulder, “ I have saved him. What weakness is this, my dear! Let 
me go to the door.” 

He took the lamp in his hands, crossed the two intervening outer 
rooms, and opened it. A rude clattering of feet over the floor, and 
four rough men in red caps, armed with sabres and pistols, entered the 
room. 

“ The Citizen Evremonde, called Darnay,” said the first. 

“Who seeks him?’ answered Darnay. 

“ I seek him. We seek him. I know you, Evremonde; I saw you 
before the Tribunal to-day. You are again the prisoner of the Re- 
public.” 

The four surrounded him, where he stood with his wife and child 
clinging to him. 

“ Tell me how and why am I again a prisoner? ” 

“ It is enough that you return straight to the Conciergerie, and will 
know to-morrow. You are summoned for to-morrow.” 

Dr. Manette, whom this visitation had so turned into stone, that he 
stood with the lamp in his hand, as if he were a statue made to hold 


282 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


it, moved after these words were spoken, put the lamp down, and con- 
fronting the speaker, and taking him, not ungently, by the loose front 
of his red woollen shirt, said: 

“ You know him, you have said. Do you know me? ” 

“ Yes, I know you. Citizen Doctor.” 

“ We all know you. Citizen Doctor,” said the other three. 

He looked abstractedly from one to another, and said, in a lower 
voice, after a pause: 

“Will you answer this question to me then? How does this hap- 
pen? ” 

“ Citizen Doctor,” said the first, reluctantly, “ he has been denounced 
to the Section of Saint Antoine. This citizen,” pointing out the sec- 
ond who had entered, “ is from Saint Antoine.” 

The citizen here indicated nodded his head, and added: 

“ He is accused by Saint Antoine.” 

“ Of what? ” asked the Doctor. 

“ Citizen Doctor,” said the first, with his former reluctance, “ ask 
no more. If the Republic demands sacrifices from you, without doubt 
you as a good patriot will be happy to make them. The Republic goes 
before all. The People is supreme. Evremonde, we are pressed.” 

“ One word,” the Doctor entreated. “ Will you tell me who de- 
nounced him? ” 

“ It is against rule,” answered the first; “but you can ask Him of 
Saint Antoine here.” 

The Doctor turned his eyes upon that man. Who moved uneasily 
on his feet, rubbed his beard a little, and at length said: 

“Well! Truly it is against rule. But he is denounced — and 
gravely — by the Citizen and Citizeness Defarge. And by one other.” 

“What other?” 

“ Do you ask. Citizen Doctor? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Then,” said he of Saint Antoine, with a strange look, “ you will be 
answered to-morrow. Now, I am dumb! ” 


CHAPTER VIII 


A HAND AT CARDS 

H appily unconscious of the new calamity at home, Miss Pross 
threaded her way along the narrow streets and crossed the river 
by the bridge of the Pont-Neuf, reckoning in her mind the number of 
indispensable purchases she had to make. Mr. Cruncher, with the 
basket, walked at her side. They both looked to the right and to the 
left into most of the shops they passed, had a wary eye for all gregarious 
assemblages of people, and turned out of their road to avoid any very 
excited group of talkers. It was a raw evening, and the misty river, 
blurred to the eye with blazing lights and to the ear with harsh noises, 
showed where the barges were stationed in which the smiths worked, 
making guns for the Army of the Republic. Woe to the man who 
played tricks with that Army, or got undeserved promotion in it! 
Better for him that his beard had never grown, for the National Razor 
shaved him close. 

Having purchased a few small articles of grocery, and a measure of 
oil for the lamp. Miss Pross bethought herself of the wine they wanted. 
After peeping into several wine-shops, she stopped at the sign of The 
Good Republican Brutus of Antiquity, not far from the National Palace, 
once (and twice) the Tuileries, where the aspect of things rather took 
her fancy. It had a quieter look than any other place of the same 
description they had passed, and, though red with patriotic caps, was 
not so red as the rest. Sounding Mr. Cruncher, and finding him of her 
opinion. Miss Pross resorted to The Good Republican Brutus of An- 
tiquity, attended by her cavalier. 

Slightly observant of the smoky lights; of the people, pipe in mouth, 
playing with limp cards and yellow dominoes ; of the one bare-breasted, 
bare-armed, soot-begrimed workman reading a journal aloud, and of 
the others listening to him; of the weapons worn, or laid aside to be 
resumed; of the two or three customers fallen forward asleep, who in 
the popular high-shouldered shaggy black spencer looked, in that atti- 


284 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


tude, like slumbering bears or dogs; the two outlandish customers ap- 
proached the counter, and showed what they wanted. 

As their wine was measuring out, a man parted from another man 
in a corner, and rose to depart. In going, he had to face Miss Pross. 
No sooner did he face her, than Miss Pross uttered a scream, and 
clapped her hands. 

In a moment, the whole company were on their feet. That some- 
body was assassinated by somebody vindicating a difference of opinion 
was the likeliest occurrence. Everybody looked to see somebody fall, 
but only saw a man and a woman standing staring at each other; the 
man with all the outward aspect of a Frenchman and a thorough Re- 
publican ; the woman, evidently English. 

What was said in this disappointing anti-climax, by the disciples of 
the Good Republican Brutus of Antiquity, except that it was something 
very voluble and loud, would have been as so much Hebrew or Chaldean 
to Miss Pross and her protector, though they had been all ears. But, 
they had no ears for anything in their surprise. For, it must be re- 
corded, that not only was Miss Pross lost in amazement and agitation, 
but, Mr. Cruncher — though it seemed on his own separate and individ- 
ual account — was in a state of the greatest wonder. 

“What is the matter?” said the man who had caused Miss Pross 
to scream; speaking in a vexed, abrupt voice (though in a low tone), 
and in English. 

“ Oh, Solomon, dear Solomon ! ” cried Miss Pross, clapping her 
hands again. “ After not setting eyes upon you or hearing of you for so 
long a time, do I find you here ! ” 

“ Don’t call me Solomon. Do you want to be the death of me? ” 
asked the man in a furtive, frightened way. 

“ Brother, brother ! ” cried Miss Pross, bursting into tears. “ Have 
I even been so hard with you that you ask me such a cruel question? ” 

“ Then hold your meddlesome tongue,” said Solomon, “ and come 
out, if you want to speak to me. Pay for your wine, and come out. 
Who’s this man? ” 

Miss Pross, shaking her loving and dejected head at her by no 
means affectionate brother, said through her tears, “ Mr. Cruncher.” 

“ Let him come out too,” said Solomon. “ Does he think me a 
ghost? ” 

Apparently, Mr. Cruncher did, to judge from his looks. He said 


A HAND AT CARDS 285 

not a word, however, and Miss Pross, exploring the depths of her 
reticule through her tears, with great difficulty paid for her wine. As 
she did so, Solomon turned to the followers of the Good Republican 
Brutus of Antiquity, and offered a few words of explanation in the 
French language, which caused them all to relapse into their former 
places and pursuits. 

Now, said Solomon, stopping at the dark street corner, “ what 
do you want? ” 

How dreadfully unkind in a brother nothing has ever turned my 
love away from! ” cried Miss Pross, “ to give me such a greeting, and 
show me no affection. 

“There. Confound it! There,’’ said Solomon, making a dab at 
Miss Pross’s lips with his own. “ Now are you content? ” 

Miss Pross only shook her head and wept in silence. 

“ If you expect me to be surprised,” said her brother Solomon, “ I 
am not surprised; I knew you were here ; I know of most people who are 
here. If you really don’t want to endanger my existence — which I 
half believe you do — go your ways as soon as possible, and let me go 
mine. I am busy. I am an official.” 

“ My English brother Solomon,” mourned Miss Pross, casting up 
her tear-fraught eyes, “ that had the makings in him of one of the 
best and greatest of men in his native country, an official among for- 
eigners, and such foreigners! I would almost sooner have seen the 
dear boy lying in his — ” 

“I said so!” cried her brother, interrupting. “I knew it. You 
want to be the death of me. I shall be rendered Suspected, by my 
own sister. Just as I am getting on ! ” 

“ The gracious and merciful Heavens forbid ! ” cried Miss Pross. 
“ Far rather would I never see you again, dear Solomon, though I have 
ever loved you truly, and ever shall. Say but one affectionate word 
to me, and tell me there is nothing angry or estranged between us, and 
I will detain you no longer.” 

Good Miss Pross ! As if the estrangement between them had come 
of any culpability of hers. As if Mr. Lorry had not known it for 
a fact, years ago, in the quiet corner in Soho, that this precious brother 
had spent her money and left her ! 

He was saying the affectionate word, however, with a far more 
grudging condescension and patronage than he could have shown if their 


286 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


relative merits and positions had been reversed (which Is invariably 
the case, all the world over) , when Mr. Cruncher, touching him on the 
shoulder, hoarsely and unexpectedly Interposed with the following singu- 
lar question : 

“ I say! Might I ask the favor? As to whether your name Is John 
Solomon, or Solomon John? ” 

The official turned towards him with sudden distrust. He had not 
previously uttered a word. 

“ Come! ” said Mr. Cruncher. “ Speak out, you know.” (Which, 
by the way, was more than he could do himself.) “John Solomon, 
or Solomon John? She calls you Solomon, and she must know, being 
your sister. And I know you’re John, you know. Which of the two 
goes first? And regarding that name of Pross, likewise. That warn’t 
your name over the water.” 

“ What do you mean? ” 

“ Well, I don’t know all I mean, for I can’t call to mind what your 
name was, over the water.” 

“No?” 

“ No. But I’ll swear It was a name of two syllables.” 

“Indeed?” 

“Yes. T’other one’s was one syllable. I know you. You was 
a spy-witness at the Bailey. What, in the name of the Father of Lies, 
own father to yourself, was you called at that time? ” 

“ Barsad,” said another voice, striking in. 

“ That’s the name for a thousand pound! ” cried Jerry. 

The speaker who struck In, was Sydney Carton. He had his hands 
behind him under the skirts of his riding-coat, and he stood at Mr. 
Cruncher’s elbow as negligently as he might have stood at the Old 
Bailey Itself. 

“ Don’t be alarmed, my dear Miss Pross. I arrived at Mr. Lorry’s, 
to his surprise, yesterday evening; we agreed that I would not present 
myself elsewhere until all was well, or unless I could be useful; I 
present myself here, to beg a little talk with your brother. I wish you 
had a better employed brother than Mr. Barsad. I wish for your sake 
Mr. Barsad was not a Sheep of the Prisons.” 

Sheep was a cant word of the time for a spy, under the gaolers. The 
spy, who was pale, turned paler, and asked him how he dared — 

“ I’ll tell you,” said Sydney. “ I lighted on you, Mr. Barsad, com- 


287 


A HAND AT CARDS 

mg out of the prison of the Conciergerie whilst I was contemplating 
the walls, an hour or more ago. You have a face to be remembered, 
and I remember faces well. Made curious by seeing you in that con- 
nection, and having a reason, to which you are no stranger, for associat- 
ing you with the misfortunes of a friend now very unfortunate, I 
walked in your direction. I walked into the wine-shop here, close after 
you, and sat near you. I had no difficulty in deducing from your un- 
reserved conversation, and the rumor openly going about among your 
admirers, the nature of your calling. And gradually, what I had done 
at random, seemed to shape itself into a purpose, Mr. Barsad.” 

“ What purpose? ” the spy asked. 

It would be troublesome, and might be dangerous, to explain in 
the street. Could you favor me, in confidence, with some minutes of 
your company — at the office of Tellson’s Bank, for instance? ” 

“ Under a threat? ” 

“ Oh! Did I say that? ” 

“ Then, why should I go there? ” 

“ Really, Mr. Barsad, I can’t say, if you can’t.” 

“ Do you mean that you won’t say, sir? ” the spy irresolutely asked. 

“ You apprehend me very clearly, Mr. Barsad. I won’t.” 

Carton’s negligent recklessness of manner came powerfully in aid of 
his quickness and skill, in such a business as he had in his secret mind, and 
with such a man as he had to do with. His practised eye saw it, and 
made the most of it. 

“ Now, I told you so,” said the spy, casting a reproachful look at his 
sister; “ if any trouble comes of that, it’s your doing.” 

“ Come, come, Mr. Barsad 1 ” exclaimed Sydney. “ Don’t be un- 
grateful. But for my great respect for your sister, I might not have 
led up so pleasantly to a little proposal that I wish to make for our 
mutual satisfaction. Do you go with me to the Bank?” 

“ I’ll hear what you have got to say. Yes, I’ll go with you.” 

“ I propose that we first conduct your sister safely to the corner of 
her own street. Let me take your arm. Miss Pross. This is not a 
good city, at this time, for you to be out in, unprotected; and as your 
escort knows Mr. Barsad, I will invite him to Mr. Lorry’s with us. 
Are we ready? Come then! ” 

Miss Pross recalled soon afterwards, and to the end of her life 
remembered, that as she pressed her hands on Sydney’s arm and looked 


288 


A TALE OF TfVO CITIES 


up in his face, imploring him to do no hurt to Solomon, there was 
a braced purpose in the arm and a kind of inspiration in the eyes, 
which not only contradicted his light manner, but changed and raised the 
man. She was too much occupied then with fears for the brother who 
so little deserved her affection, and with Sydney’s friendly reassurances, 
adequately to heed what she observed. 

They left her at the corner of the street, and Carton led the way to 
Mr. Lorry’s, which was within a few minutes’ walk. John Barsad, or 
Solomon Pross, walked at his side. 

Mr. Lorry had just finished his dinner, and was sitting before a 
cheery little log or two of fire — perhaps looking into their blaze for 
the picture of that younger elderly gentleman from Tellson’s, who 
had looked into the red coals at the Royal George at Dover, now a 
good many years ago. He turned his head as they entered, and 
showed the surprise with which he saw a stranger. 

“ Miss Pross’s brother, sir,” said Sydney. “ Mr. Barsad.” 

“ Barsad? ” repeated the old gentleman, “ Barsad? I have an asso- 
ciation with the name — and with the face.” 

“ I told you you had a remarkable face, Mr. Barsad,” observed 
Carton, coolly. “ Pray sit down.” 

As he took a chair himself, he supplied the link that Mr. Lorry 
wanted, by saying to him with a frown, ” Witness at that trial.” Mr. 
Lorry immediately remembered, and regarded his new visitor with an un- 
disguised look of abhorrence. 

“ Mr. Barsad has been recognized by Miss Pross as the affectionate 
brother you have heard of,” said Sydney, “ and has acknowledged the 
relationship. I pass to worse news. Darnay has been arrested again.” 

Struck with consternation, the old gentleman exclaimed, “ What do 
you tell me ! I left him safe and free within these two hours, and am 
about to return to him ! ” 

“ Arrested for all that. When was it done, Mr. Barsad? ” 

“ Just now, if at all.” 

“ Mr. Barsad is the best authority possible, sir,” said Sydney, “ and 
I have it from Mr. Barsad’s communication to a friend and brother 
Sheep over a bottle of wine, that the arrest has taken place. He left 
the messengers at the gate, and saw them admitted by the porter. 
There is no earthly doubt that he is retaken.” 

Mr. Lorry’s business eye read in the speaker’s face that it was loss 


A HAND AT CARDS 


289 


of time to dwell upon the point. Confused, but sensible that something 
might depend on his presence of mind, he commanded himself, and was 
Silently attentive. 

“Now, I trust,” said Sydney to him, “ that the name and influence 
^ ‘A 1 j Stand him in as good stead to-morrow — you 

said he would be before the Tribunal again to-morrow, Mr. Barsad? — ” 
Yes; I believe so.” 


In as good stead to-morrow as to-day. But it may not be so. 
1 own to you, I am shaken, Mr. Lorry, by Doctor Manette’s not having 
had the power to prevent this arrest.” 

‘‘ He may not have known of it beforehand,” said Mr. Lorry. 

But that very circumstance would be alarming, when we remember 
how identified he is with his son-in-law.” 

That’s true,” Mr. Lorry acknowledged, with his troubled hand at 
his chin, and his troubled eyes on Carton. 

In short,” said Sydney, “ this is a desperate time, when desperate 
games are played for desperate stakes. Let the Doctor play the win- 
ning game; I will play the losing one. No man’s life here is worth 
purchase. Any one carried home by the people to-day, may be con- 
demned to-morrow. Now, the stake I have resolved to play for, in 
case of the worst, is a friend in the Conciergerie. And the friend I 
purpose to myself to win, is Mr. Barsad.” 

“ You need have good cards, sir,” said the spy. 

“ I’ll run them over. I’ll see what I hold. Mr. Lorry, you know 
what a brute I am; I wish you’d give me a little brandy.” 

It was put before him, and he drank off a glassful — drank off an- 
other glassful — pushed the bottle thoughtfully away. 

“ Mr. Barsad,” he went on, in the tone of one who really was look- 
ing over a hand at cards; “Sheep of the prisons, emissary of Re- 
publican committees, now turnkey, now prisoner, always spy and secret 
informer, so much the more valuable here for being English that an 
Englishman is less open to suspicion of subornation in those char- 
acters than a Frenchman, represents himself to his employers under 
a false name. That’s a very good card. Mr. Barsad, now in the 
employ of the republican French government, was formerly in the 
employ of the aristocratic English government, the enemy of France 
and freedom. That’s an excellent card. Inference clear as day in 
this region of suspicion, that Mr. Barsad, still in the pay of the aristo- 


290 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


cratic English government, is the spy of Pitt, the treacherous foe of 
the Republic crouching in its bosom, the English traitor and agent of 
all mischief so much spoken of and so difficult to find. That’s a card 
not to be beaten. Have you followed my hand, Mr. Barsad?” 

“ Not to understand your play,” returned the spy, somewhat un- 
easily. 

“ I play my Ace, Denunciation of Mr. Barsad to the nearest Section 
Committee. Look over your hand, Mr. Barsad, and see what you 
have. Don’t hurry.” 

He drew the bottle near, poured out another glassful of brandy, 
and drank it off. He saw that the spy was fearful of his drinking him- 
self into a fit state for the immediate denunciation of him. Seeing 
it, he poured out and drank another glassful. 

“ Look over your hand carefully, Mr. Barsad. Take time.” 

It was a poorer hand than he suspected. Mr. Barsad saw losing 
cards in it that Sydney Carton knew nothing of. Thrown out of his 
honorable employment in England, through too much unsuccessful 
hard swearing there — not because he was not wanted there ; our 
English reasons for vaunting our superiority to secrecy and spies are 
of very modern date — he knew that he had crossed the Channel, and 
accepted service in France, first, as a tempter and an eavesdropper 
among his own countrymen there, gradually as a tempter and an eaves- 
dropper among the natives. He knew that under the overthrown 
government he had been a spy upon Saint Antoine and Defarge’s wine- 
shop; had received from the watchful police such heads of informa- 
tion concerning Doctor Manette’s imprisonment, release, and history, 
as should serve him for an introduction to familiar conversation with 
the Defarges; and tried them on Madame Defarge, and had broken 
down with them signally. He always remembered with fear and 
trembling, that that terrible woman had knitted when he talked with 
her, and had looked ominously at him as her fingers moved. He had 
since seen her, in the Section of Saint Antoine, over and over again 
produce her knitted registers, and denounce people whose lives the 
guillotine then surely swallowed up. He knew, as every one employed 
as he was did, that he was never safe; that flight was impossible; that 
he was tied fast under the shadow of the ax; and that in spite of his 
utmost tergiversation and treachery in furtherance of the reigning 
terror, a word might bring it down upon him. Once denounced, and 


A HAND AT CARDS 291 

on such grave grounds as had just now been suggested to his mind, he 
foresaw that the dreadful woman of whose unrelenting character he had 
seen many proofs, would produce against him that fatal register, and 
would quash his last chance of life. Besides that all secret men are 
men soon terrified, here were surely cards enough of one black suit, 
to justify the holder in growing rather livid as he turned them over. 

You scarcely seem to like your hand,” said Sydney, with the great- 
est composure. “ Do you play? ” 

I think, sir, said the spy, in the meanest manner, as he turned 
to Mr. Lorry, I may appeal to a gentlema‘n of your years and benevo- 
lence, to put it to this other gentleman, so much your junior, whether he 
can under any circumstances reconcile it to his station to play that Ace 
of which he has spoken. I admit that I am a spy, and that it is con- 
sidered a discreditable station — though it must be filled by some- 
body ; but this gentleman is no spy, and why should he so demean him- 
self as to make himself one? ” 

I play my Ace, Mr. Bapsad,” said Carton, taking the answer on 
himself, and looking at his watch, “ without any scruple, in a very few 
minutes.” 

“ I should have hoped, gentlemen both,” said the spy, always striving 
to hook Mr. Lorry into the discussion, “ that your respect for my 
sister — ” 

“ I could not better testify my respect for your sister than by finally 
relieving her of her brother,” said Sydney Carton. 

“ You think not, sir? ” 

“ I have thoroughly made up my mind about it.” 

The smooth manner of the spy, curiously in dissonance with his osten- 
tatiously rough dress, and probably with his usual demeanor, received 
such a check from the inscrutability of Carton, — who was a mystery 
to wiser and honester men than he, — that it faltered here and failed 
him. While he was at a loss. Carton said, resuming his former air of 
contemplating cards : 

“ And indeed, now I think again, I have a strong impression that 
I have another good card here, not yet enumierated. That friend and 
fellow-Sheep, who spoke of himself as pasturing in the country prisons; 
who was he ? ” 

“ French. You don’t know him,” said the spy, quickly. 


292 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“French, eh?” repeated Carton, musing, and not appearing to 
notice him at all, though he echoed his word. “ Well; he may be.” 

“ Is, I assure you,” said the spy; “ though it’s not important.” 

“ Though it’s not important,” repeated Carton, in the same mechani- 
cal way — “though it’s not important. No, it’s not important. No. 
Yet I know the face.” 

“ I think not. I am sure not. It can’t be,” said the spy. 

“It — can’t — be,” muttered Sydney Carton, retrospectively, and 
filling his glass (which fortunately was a small one) again. “ Can’t 
— be. Spoke good French. Yet like a foreigner, I thought? ” 

“ Provincial,” said the spy. 

“No. Foreign!” cried Carton, striking his open hand on the 
table, as a light broke clearly on his mind. “ Cly 1 Disguised, but the 
same man. We had that man before us at the Old Bailey.” 

“ Now, there you are hasty, sir,” said Barsad, with a smile that gave 
his aquiline nose an extra inclination to one side; “ there you really give 
me an advantage over you. Cly (who I will unreservedly admit, at 
this distance of time, was a partner of mine) has been dead several years. 
I attended him in his last illness. He was buried in London, at the 
church of Saint Pancras-in-the-Fields. His unpopularity with the black- 
guard multitude at the moment prevented my following his remains, 
but I helped to lay him in his coffin.” 

Here, Mr. Lorry became aware, from where he sat, of a most 
remarkable goblin shadow on the wall. Tracing it to its source, he 
discovered it to be caused by a sudden extraordinary rising and stiffen- 
ing of all the risen and stiff hair on Mr. Cruncher’s head. 

“ Let us be reasonable,” said the spy, “ and let us be fair. To show 
you how mistaken you are, and what an unfounded assumption yours is, 
I will lay before you a certificate of Cly’s burial, which I happen to 
have carried in my pocket-book,” with a hurried hand he produced and 
opened it, “ ever since. There it is. Oh, look at it, look at it! You 
may take it in your hand. It’s no forgery.” 

Here, Mr. Lorry perceived the reflection on the wall to elongate, and 
Mr. Cruncher rose and stepped forward. His hair could not have 
been more violently on end^ if it had’been that moment dressed by the 
Cow with the crumpled horn in the house that Jack built. 

Unseen by the spy, Mr. Cruncher stood at his side, and touched him 
on the shoulder like a ghostly bailiff. 


A HAND AT CARDS 293 

j Roger Cly, master, said Mr. Cruncher, with a taciturn 

'* coffin? ” 

“ Who took him out of it? ” 

Barsad leaned back in his chair, and stammered, “What do you 
mean?” ^ 

I mean, said Mr. Cruncher, “that he warn’t never in it. No! 
Not he I 1 11 have my head took off, if he was ever in it.” 

The spy looked round at the two gentlemen; they both looked in un- 
speakable astonishment at Jerry. 

I tell you, said Jerry, that you buried paving-stones and earth in 
that there coffin. Don t go and tell me that you buried Cly. It was a 
take in. Me and two more knows it.” 

“ How do you know it? ” 

“ What’s that to you? Ecod! ” growled Mr. Cruncher, “ it’s you I 
have got a old grudge again, is it, with your shameful impositions upon 
tradesmen! I’d catch hold of your throat and choke you for half a 
guinea.” 

Sydney Carton, who, with Mr.. Lorry, had been lost in amazement 
at this turn of the business, here requested Mr. Cruncher to moderate 
and explain himself. 

“ At another time, sir,” he returned evasively, “ the present time is 
ill-conwenient for explainin’. What I stand to, is, that he knows well 
wot that there Cly was never in that there coffin. Let him say he was, 
in so much as a word of one syllable, and I’ll either catch hold of his 
throat and choke him for half a guinea,” Mr. Cruncher dwelt upon 
this as quite a liberal offer; “ or I’ll out and announce him.” 

“Humph! I see one thing,” said Carton. “I hold another card, 
Mr. Barsad. Impossible, here in raging Paris, with Suspicion filling 
the air, for you to outlive denunciation, when you are in communication 
with another aristocratic spy of the same antecedents as yourself, who, 
moreover, has the mystery about him of having feigned death and come 
to life again! A plot in the prisons, of the foreigner against the Re- 
public. A strong card — a certain Guillotine card! Do you play?” 

“ No ! ” returned the spy. “ I throw up. I confess that we were 
so unpopular with the outrageous mob, that I only got away from 
England at the risk of being ducked to death, and that Cly was so 
ferreted up and down, that he never would have got away at all but 


294 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


for that sham. Though how this man knows it was a sham, is a won- 
der of wonders to me.” 

“ Never you trouble your head about this man,” retorted the con- 
tentious Mr. Cruncher; “you’ll have trouble enough with giving your 
attention to that gentleman. And look here ! Once more ! ” — Mr. 
Cruncher could not be restrained from making rather an ostentatious 
parade of his liberality — “ I’d catch hold of your throat and choke 
you for half a guinea.” 

The Sheep of the prisons turned from him to Sydney Carton, and 
said, with more decision, “ It has come to a point. I go on duty soon, 
and can’t overstay my time. You told me you had a proposal; what 
is it? Now, it is of no use asking too much of me. Ask me to do 
anything in my office, putting my head in great extra danger, and I 
had better trust my life to the chances of a refusal than the chances of 
consent. In short, I should make that choice. You talk of despera- 
tion. We are all desperate here. Remember! I may denounce you 
if I think proper, and I can swear my way through stone walls, and 
so can others. Now, what do you want with me? ” 

“ Not very much. You are a turnkey at the Conciergerie? ” 

“ I tell you once for all, there is no such thing as an escape possible,” 
said the spy, firmly. 

“ Why need you tell me what I have not asked? You are a turnkey 
at the Conciergerie? ” 

“ I am sometimes.” 

“ You can be when you choose.” 

“ I can pass in and out when I choose.” 

Sydney Carton filled another glass with brandy, poured it slowly out 
upon the hearth, and watched it as it dropped. It being all spent, he 
said, rising: 

“ So far, we have spoken before these two, because it was as well 
that the merits of the cards should not rest solely between you and me. 
Come into the dark room here, and let us have one final word alone.” 


CHAPTER IX 


THE GAME MADE 

W HILE Sydney Carton and the Sheep of the prisons were in the 
adjoining dark room, speaking so low that not a sound was 
heard, Mr. Lorry looked at Jerry in considerable doubt and mistrust. 
That honest tradesman’s manner of receiving the look, did not inspire 
confidence ; he changed the leg on which he rested, as often as if he had 
fifty of those limbs, and were trying them all; he examined his finger- 
nails with a very questionable closeness of attention; and whenever 
Mr. Lorry’s eye caught his, he was taken with that peculiar kind of 
short cough requiring the hollow of a hand before it, which is seldom, 
if ever, known to be an infirmity attendant on perfect openness of char- 
acter. 

“ Jerry,” said Mr. Lorry. “ Come here.” 

Mr. Cruncher came forward sideways, with one of his shoulders 
in advance of him. 

“ What have you been, besides a messenger? ” 

After some cogitation, accompanied with an intent look at his patron, 
Mr. Cruncher conceived the luminous idea of replying, “ Agricultooral 
character.” 

“ My mind misgives me much,” said Mr. Lorry, angrily shaking a 
forefinger at him, “ that you have used the respectable and great house 
of Tellson’s as a blind, and that you have had an unlawful occupation 
of an infamous description. If you have, don’t expect me to befriend 
you when you get back to England. If you have, don’t expect me to 
keep your secret. Tellson’s shall not be imposed upon.” 

“ I hope, sir,” pleaded the abashed Mr. Cruncher, “ that a gentle- 
man like yourself wot I’ve had the honor of odd jobbing till I’m gray 
at it, would think twice about harming of me, even if it wos so — I 
don’t say it is, but even if it wos. And which it is to be took into 
account that if it wos, it wouldn’t, even then, be all o’ one side. There’d 
be two sides to it. There might be medical doctors at the present 
hour, a picking up their guineas where a honest tradesman don’t pick up 

295 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


296 

his fardens — fardens ! no, nor yet his half fardens — half fardens ! no, 
nor yet his quarter — a banking away like smoke at Tellson’s, and a 
cocking their medical eyes at that tradesman on the sly, a going in and 
going out to their own carriages — ah ! equally like smoke, if not more 
so. Well, that ’ud be imposing, too, on Tellson’s. For you cannot 
sarse the goose and not the gander. And here’s Mrs. Cruncher, or 
leastways wos in the Old England times, and would be to-morrow, if 
cause given, a floppin’ again the business to that degree as is ruinating 

— stark ruinating! Whereas them medical doctors’ wives don’t flop 

— catch ’em at it! Or, if they flop, their floppings goes in favor of 
more patients, and how can you rightly have one without the t’other? 
Then, wot with undertakers, and wot with parish clerks, and wot with 
Sextons, and wot with private watchmen (all awaricious and all in it), 
a man wouldn’t get much by it, even if it wos so. And wot little a 
man did get, would never prosper with him, Mr. Lorry. He’d never 
have no good of it; he’d want all along to be out of the line, if he 
could see his way out, being once in — even if it wos so.” 

“ Ugh ! ” cried Mr. Lorry, rather relenting, nevertheless. “ I am 
shocked at the sight of you.” 

“ Now, what I would humbly offer to you, sir,” pursued Mr. 
Cruncher, “ even if it wos so, which I don’t say it is — ” 

“ Don’t prevaricate,” said Mr. Lorry. 

“ No, I will not, sir,” returned Mr. Cruncher, as if nothing were 
further from his thoughts or practice — “ which I don’t say it is — 
wot I would humbly offer to you, sir, would be this. Upon that there 
stool, at that there Bar, sets that there boy of mine, brought up and 
growed up to be a man, wot will errand you, message you, general- 
light-job you, till your heels is where your head is, if such should be 
your wishes. If it wos so, which I still don’t say it is (for I will not 
prewaricate to you, sir), let that there boy keep his father’s place, 
and take care of his mother; don’t blow upon that boy’s father — do 
not do it, sir — and let that father go into the line of the reg’lar diggin’, 
and make amends for what he would have un-dug — if it wos so — 
by diggin’ of ’em in with a will, and with conwictions respectin’ the 
.utur’ keepin’ of ’em safe. That, Mr. Lorry,” said Mr. Cruncher, wip- 
ing his forehead with his arm, as an announcement that he had arrived 
at the peroration of his discourse, “ is wot I would respectfully offer 
to you, sir. A man don’t see all this here a goin’ on dreadful round 


THE GAME MADE 297 

him, in the way of Subjects without heads, dear me, plentiful enough 
fur to bring the price down to porterage and hardly that, without havin’ 
his serious thoughts of things. Anc these here would be mine, if it 
wos so, entreatin’ of you fur to bear in mind that wot I said just now, 
I up and said in the good cause when I might have kep’ it back.” 

That at least is true, said Mr. Lorry. “ Say no more now. It 
may be that I shall yet stand your friend, if you deserve it, and re- 
pent in action — not in words. I want no more words.” 

Mr. Cruncher knuckled his forehead, as Sydney Carton and the spy 
returned from the dark room. “ Adieu, Mr. Barsad,” said the former; 
“ our arrangement thus made, you have nothing to fear from me.” 

He sat down in a chair on the hearth, over against Mr. Lorry. When 
they were alone, Mr. Lorry asked him what he had done? 

Not much. If it should go ill with the prisoner, I have ensured 
access to him, once.” 

Mr. Lorry’s countenance fell. 

“ It is all I could do,” said Carton. “ To propose too much, would 
be to put this man’s head under the ax, and, as he himself said, nothing 
worse could happen to him if he were denounced. It was obviously the 
weakness of the position. There is no help for it.” 

“ But access to him,” said Mr. Lorry, “ if it should go ill before the 
Tribunal, will not save him.” 

“ I never said it would.” 

Mr. Lorry’s eyes gradually sought the fire; his sympathy with his 
darling, and the heavy disappointment of this second arrest, gradually 
weakened them; he was an old man now, overborne with anxiety of 
late, and his tears fell. 

“ You are a good man and a true friend,” said Carton, in an altered 
voice. “ Forgive me if I notice that you are affected. I could not see 
my father weep, and sit by, careless. And I could not respect your 
sorrow more, if you were my father. You are free from the mis- 
fortune, however.” 

Though he said the last words, with a slip into his usual manner, 
there was a true feeling and respect both in his tone and in his touch, 
that Mr. Lorry, who had never seen the better side of him, was wholly 
unprepared for. He gave him his hand, and Carton gently pressed it. 

“ To return to poor Darnay,” said Carton. “ Don’t tell Her of 
this interview, or this arrangement. It would not enable Her to go 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


298 

to see him. She might think it. was contrived, in case of the worst, to 
convey to him the means of anticipating the sentence.” 

Mr. Lorry had not thought of hat, and he looked quickly at Carton 
to see if it were in his mind. It seemed to be; he returned the look, 
and evidently understood it. 

“ She might think a thousand things,” Carton said, “ and any of 
them would only add to her trouble. Don’t speak of me to her. As 
I said to you when I first came, I had better not see her. I can put 
my hand out, to do any little helpful work for her that my hand can 
find to do, without that. You are going to her, I hope? She must 
be very desolate to-night.” 

“ I am going now, directly.” 

” I am glad of that. She has such a strong attachment to you and 
reliance on you. How does she look?” 

“ Anxious and unhappy, but very beautiful.” 

“ Ah! ” 

It was a long, grieving sound, like a sigh — almost like a sob. It 
attracted Mr. Lorry’s eyes to Carton’s face, which was turned to the 
fire. A light, or a shade (the old gentleman could not have said 
which), passed from it as swiftly as a change will sweep over a hill-side 
on a wild bright day, and he lifted his foot to put back one of the little 
flaming logs, which was tumbling forward. He wore the white riding- 
coat and top boots, then in vogue, and the light of the fire touching 
their light surfaces made him look very pale, with his long brown hair, 
all untrimmed, hanging loose about him. His indifference to fire was 
sufficiently remarkable to elicit a word of remonstrance from Mr. Lorry; 
his boot was still upon the hot embers of the flaming log, when it had 
broken under the weight of his foot. 

“ I forgot it,” he said. 

Mr. Lorry’s eyes were again attracted to his face. Taking note of 
the wasted air which clouded the naturally handsome features, and 
having the expression of prisoners’ faces fresh in his mind, he was 
strongly reminded of that expression. 

“And your duties here have drawn to an end, sir?” said Carton, 
turning to him. 

“ Yes. As I was telling you last night when Lucie came in so un- 
expectedly, I have at length done all that I can do here. I hoped to 


THE GAME MADE 299 

have left them in perfect safety, and then to have quitted Paris. I 
have my Leave to Pass. I was ready to go.” 

They were both silent. 

Yours is a long life to look back upon, sir? ” said Carton, wistfully. 

1 am in my seventy-eighth year.” 

“ You have been useful all your life; steadily and constantly occupied; 
trusted, respected, and looked up to?” 

I have been a man of business, ever since I have been a man. In- 
deed, I may say that I was a man of business when a boy.” 

See what a place you fill at seventy-eight. How many people will 
miss you when you leave it empty! ” 

“ A solitary old bachelor,” answered Mr. Lorry, shaking his head. 
“ There is nobody to weep for me.” 

“ How can you say that? Wouldn’t She weep for you? Wouldn’t 
her child?” 

“Yes, yes, thank God. I didn’t quite mean what I said.” 

“It is a thing to thank God for; is it not? ” 

“ Surely, surely.” 

“ If you could say, with truth, to your own solitary heart, to-night, 
“ I have secured to myself the love and attachment, the gratitude or 
respect, of no human creature; I have won myself a tender place in no 
regard; I have done nothing good or serviceable to be remembered 
by! ” your seventy-eight years would be seventy-eight heavy curses; 
would they not? ” 

“ You say truly, Mr. Carton; I think they would be.” 

Sydney turned his eyes again upon the fire, and, after a silence of a 
few moments, said: 

“I should like to ask you — does your childhood seem far off? 
Do the days when you sat at your mother’s knee, seem days of very long 
ago? ” 

Responding to his softened manner, Mr. Lorry answered: 

“Twenty years back, yes; at this time of my life, no. For, as I 
draw closer and closer to the end, I travel in the circle, nearer and 
nearer to the beginning. It seems to be one of the kind smoothings 
and preparings of the way. My heart is touched now, by many remem- 
brances that had long fallen asleep, of my pretty young mother (and 
I so old!), and by many associations of the days when what we call 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


300 

the World was not so real with me, and my faults were not confirmed 
in me.” 

“ I understand the feeling! ” exclaimed Carton, with a bright flush. 
“ And you are the better for it? ” 

“ I hope so.” 

Carton terminated the conversation here, by rising to help him on 
with his outer coat. “ But you,” said Mr. Lorry, reverting to the theme, 
“ you are young.” 

“ Yes,” said Carton. “ I am not old, but my young way was never 
the way to age. Enough of me.” 

“ And of me, I am sure,” said Mr. Lorry. “ Are you going out? ” 

‘‘ I’ll walk with you to her gate. You know my vagabond and rest- 
less habits. If I should prowl about the streets a long time, don’t be 
uneasy; I shall reappear in the morning. You go to the Court to- 
morrow? ” 

“ Yes, unhappily.” 

“ I shall be there, but only as one of the crowd. My Spy will find 
a place for me. Take my arm, sir.” 

Mr. Lorry did so, and they went downstairs and out in the streets. 
A few minutes brought them to Mr. Lorry’s destination. Carton left 
him there ; but lingered at a little distance, and turned back to the gate 
again when it was shut, and touched it. He had heard of her going 
to the prison every day. “ She came out here,” he said, looking about 
him, “ turned this way, must have trod on these stones often. Let me 
follow in her steps.” 

It was ten o’clock at night when he stood before the prison of La 
Force, where she had stood hundreds of times. A little wood-sawyer, 
having closed his shop, was smoking his pipe at his shop-door. 

” Good-night, citizen,” said Sydney Carton, pausing in going by; 
for, the man eyed him inquisitively. 

“ Good-night, citizen.” 

“ How goes the Republic? ” 

“ You mean the Guillotine. Not ill. Sixty-three to-day. We shall 
mount to a hundred soon. Samson and his men complain sometimes, of 
being exhausted. Ha, ha, ha I He is so droll, that Samson. Such a 
Barber!” 

“ Do you often go to see him — ” 


301 


THE GAME MADE 

“Shave? Always. Every day. What a barber! You have seen 
him at work? ” 

“ Never.” 

“ Go and see him when he has a good batch. Figure this to your- 
self, citizen ; he shaved the sixty-three to-day, in less than two pipes I 
Less than two pipes. Word of honor! ” 

As the grinning little man held out the pipe he was smoking, to ex- 
plain how he timed the executioner. Carton was so sensible of a rising 
desire to strike the life out of him, that he turned away. 

But you are not English,’’ said the wood-sawyer, “ though you wear 
English dress? ” 

“ Yes,” said Carton, pausing again, and answering over his shoulder. 

“ You speak like a Frenchman.” 

“ I am an old student here.” 

“ Aha, a perfect Frenchman I Good-night, Englishman.” 

“ Good-night, citizen.” 

“ But go and see that droll dog,” the little man persisted, calling after 
him. “ And take a pipe with you ! ” 

Sydney had not gone far out of sight, when he stopped in the middle 
of the street under a glimmering lamp, and wrote with his pencil on a 
scrap of paper. Then, traversing with the decided step of one who 
remembered the way well, several dark and dirty streets — much dirtier 
than usual, for the best public thoroughfares remained uncleansed in 
those times of terror — he stopped at a chemist’s shop, which the owner 
was closing with his own hands. A small, dim crooked shop, kept 
in a tortuous, uphill thoroughfare, by a small, dim, crooked man. 

Giving this citizen, too, good-night, as he confronted him at his 
counter, he laid the scrap of paper before him. “ Whew! ” the chem- 
ist whistled softly, as he read it. “ Hi 1 hi 1 hi 1 ” 

Sydney Carton took no heed, and the chemist said: 

“For you, citizen?” 

“ For me.” 

“ You will be careful to keep them separate, citizen? You know the 
consequences of mixing them? ” 

“ Perfectly.” 

Certain small packets were made and given to him. He put them, 
one by one, in the breast of his inner coat, counted out the money for 
them, and deliberately left the shop. “ There is nothing more to do,” 


302 A TALE OF TWO CITIES 

said he, glancing upward at the moon, “ until to-morrow. I can’t 
sleep.” 

It was not a reckless manner, the manner in which he said these words 
aloud under the fast-sailing clouds, nor was it more expressive of negli- 
gence than defiance. It was the settled manner of a tired man, who had 
wandered and struggled and got lost, but who at length struck into his 
road and saw its end. 

Long ago, when he had been famous among his earliest competitors 
as a youth of great promise, he had followed his father to the grave. 
His mother had died, years before. Those solemn words, which had 
been read at his father’s grave, arose in his mind as he went down the 
dark streets, among the heavy shadows, with the moon and the clouds 
sailing on high above him. “ I am the resurrection and the life, saith 
the Lord; he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he 
live : and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me, shall never die.” 

In a city dominated by the ax, alone at night, with natural sorrow 
rising in him for the sixty-three who had been that day put to death, 
and for to-morrow’s victims then awaiting their doom in the prisons, and 
still of to-morrow’s and to-morrow’s, the chain of association that 
brought the words home, like a rusty old ship’s anchor from the deep, 
might have been easily found. He did not seek it, but repeated them 
and went on. 

With a solemn interest in the lighted windows where the people 
were going to rest, forgetful through a few calm hours of the horrors 
surrounding them; in the towers of the churches, where no prayers were 
said, for the popular revulsion had even traveled that length of self- 
destruction from years of priestly impostors, plunderers, and profligates; 
in the distant burial-places, reserved, as they wrote upon the gates, 
for Eternal Sleep; in the abounding gaols; and in the streets along 
which the sixties rolled to a death which had become so common and 
material, that no sorrowful story of a haunting Spirit ever rose among 
the people out of all the working of the Guillotine; with a solemn in- 
terest in the whole life and death of the city settling down to its short 
nightly pause in fury; Sydney Carton crossed the Seine again for the 
lighter streets. 

Few coaches were abroad, for riders in coaches were liable to be 
suspected, and gentility hid its head in red nightcaps, and put on heavy 
shoes, and trudged. But, the theaters were all well filled, and the 


THE GAME MADE 303 

people poured cheerfully out as he passed, and went chatting home. 
X one o t e t eater doors, there was a little girl with a mother, looking 
for a way across the street through the mud. He carried the child over, 
and before the timid arm was loosed from his neck asked her for a kiss. 

I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord; he that be- 
leveth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever 
hveth and believeth in Me, shall never die.” 

Now, that the streets were quiet, and the night wore on, the words 
were in the echoes of his feet, and were in the air. Perfectly calm and 
steady, he sometimes repeated them to himself as he walked; but, he 
heard them always. 

The night wore out, and, as he stood upon the bridge listening to 
the water as it splashed the river-walls of the Island of Paris, where 
the picturesque confusion of houses and cathedral shone bright in the 
light of the moon, the day came coldly, looking like a dead face out of 
the sky. Then, the night, with the moon and the stars, turned pale and 
died, and for a little while it seemed as if Creation were delivered over 
to Death’s dominion. 

But, the glorious sun, rising, seemed to strike those words, that 
burden of the night, straight and warm to his heart in its long bright 
rays. And looking along them, with reverently shaded eyes, a bridge of 
light appeared to span the air between him and the sun, while the river 
sparkled under it. 

The strong tide, so swift, so deep, and certain, was like a congenial 
friend, in the morning stillness. He walked by the stream, far from 
the houses, and in the light and warmth of the sun fell asleep on the 
bank. When he awoke and was afoot again, he lingered there yet a 
little longer, watching an eddy that turned and turned purposeless, un- 
til the stream absorbed it, and carried it on to the sea. — “ Like me ! ” 

A trading-boat, with a sail of the softened color of a dead leaf, then 
glided into his view, floated by him, and died away. As its silent track 
in the water disappeared, the prayer that had broken up out of his 
heart for a merciful consideration of all his poor blindnesses and errors, 
ended in the words, “ I am the resurrection and the life.” 

Mr. Lorry was already out when he got back, and it was easy to 
surmise where the good old man was gone. Sydney Carton drank noth- 
ing but a little coffee, ate some bread, and, having washed and changed 
to refresh himself, went out to the place of trial. 


304 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


The court was all astir and a-buzz, when the black sheep — whom 
many fell away from in dread — pressed him into an obscure corner 
among the crowd. Mr. Lorry was there, and Doctor Manette was 
there. She was there, sitting beside her father. 

When her husband was brought in, she turned a look upon him, so sus- 
taining, so encouraging, so full of admiring love and pitying tenderness, 
yet so courageous for his sake, that it called the healthy blood into his 
face, brightened his glance, and animated his heart. If there had been 
any eyes to notice the influence of her look, on Sydney Carton, it would 
have been seen to be the same influence exactly. 

Before that unjust Tribunal, there was little or no order of procedure, 
ensuring to any accused person any reasonable hearing. There could 
have been no such Revolution, if all laws, forms, and ceremonies, had 
not first been so monstrously abused, that the suicidal vengeance of the 
Revolution was to scatter them all to the winds. 

Every eye was turned to the jury. The same determined patriots 
and good republicans as yesterday and the day before, and to-morrow 
and the day after. Eager and prominent among them, one man with a 
craving face, and his fingers perpetually hovering about his lips, whose 
appearance gave great satisfaction to the spectators. A life-thirsting, 
cannibal-looking, bloody-minded juryman, the Jacques Three of St. 
Antoine. The whole jury, as a jury of dogs empannelled to try the 
deer. 

Every eye then turned to the five judges and the public prosecutor. 
No favorable leaning in that quarter to-day. A fell, uncompromising, 
murderous business-meaning there. Every eye then sought some other 
eye in the crowd, and gleamed at it approvingly; and heads nodded at 
one another, before bending forward with a strained attention. 

Charles Evremonde, called Darnay. Released yesterday. Re-ac- 
cused and retaken yesterday. Indictment delivered to him last night. 
Suspected and Denounced enemy of the Republic, Aristocrat, one of a 
family of tyrants, one of a race proscribed, for that they had used their 
abolished privileges to the infamous oppression of the people. Charles 
Evremonde, called Darnay, in right of such proscription, absolutely 
Dead in Law. 

To this effect, in as few or fewer words, the Public Prosecutor. 

The President asked, was the Accused openly denounced, or secretly? 


THE GAME MADE 


30s 


“ Openly, President.” 

“ By whom? ” 

“ Three voices. Ernest Defarge, wine-vendor of St. Antoine.” 
Good/’ 

“ Therese Defarge, his wife.” 

“ Good.” 

“ Alexandre Manette, physician.” 

A great uproar took place in the court, and in the midst of it. Doctor 
Manette was seen, pale and trembling, standing where he had been 
seated. 

President, I indignantly protest to you that this is a forgery and a 
fraud. You know the accused to be the husband of my daughter. My 
daughter, and those dear to her, are far dearer to me than my life. 
Who and where is the false conspirator who says that I denounce the 
husband of my child ! ” 

“ Citizen Manette, be tranquil. To fail in submission to the author- 
ity of the Tribunal would be to put yourself out of Law. As to what 
is dearer to you than life, nothing can be so dear to a good citizen as 
the Republic.” 

Loud acclamations hailed this rebuke. The President rang his bell, 
and with warmth resumed. 

“If the Republic should demand of you the sacrifice of your child 
herself, you would have no duty but to sacrifice her. Listen to what is 
to follow. In the meanwhile, be silent ! ” 

Frantic acclamations were again raised. Doctor Manette sat down, 
with his eyes looking around, and his lips trembling; his daughter drew 
closer to him. The craving man on the jury rubbed his hands to- 
gether, and restored the usual hand to his mouth. 

Defarge was produced, when the court was quiet enough «to admit of 
his being heard, and rapidly expounded the story of the im])risonment, 
and of his having been a mere boy in the Doctor’s service, and of the 
release, and of the state of the prisoner when released and delivered to 
him. This short examination followed, for the court was quick with 
its work. 

“ You did good service at the taking of the Bastille, citizen? ” 

“ I believe so.” 

Here, an excited woman screeched from the crowd: “You were 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


306 

one of the best patriots there. Why not say so? You were a can- 
nonier that day there, and you were among the first to enter the ac- 
cursed fortress when it fell. Patriots, I speak the truth! ” 

It was The Vengeance who, amidst the warm commendations of the 
audience, thus assisted the proceedings. The President rang his bell; 
but. The Vengeance, warming with encouragement, shrieked, “ I defy 
that bell 1 ” wherein she was likewise much commended. 

“ Inform the Tribunal of what you did that day within the Bastille, 
citizen.” 

“ I knew,” said Defarge, looking down at his wife, who stood at 
the bottom of the steps on which he was raised, looking steadily up at 
him; “ I knew that this prisoner, of whom I speak, had been confined 
in a cell known as One Hundred and Five, North Tower. I knew it 
from himself. He knew himself by no other name than One Hundred 
and Five, North Tower, when he made shoes under my care. As I 
serve my gun that day, I resolve, when the place shall fall, to examine 
that cell. It falls. I mount to the cell, with a fellow-citizen who is 
one of the Jury, directed by a gaoler. I examine it, very closely. In 
a hole in the chimney, where a stone has been worked out and replaced, 
I find a written paper. This is that written paper. I have made it my 
business to examine some specimens of the writing of Dr. Manette. 
This is the writing of Doctor Manette. I confide this paper, in the 
writing of Doctor Manette, to the hands of the President.” 

“ Let it be read.” 

In a dead silence and stillness — the prisoner under trial looking lov- 
ingly at his wife, his wife only looking from him to look with solicitude 
at her father. Doctor Manette keeping his eyes fixed on the reader, 
Madame Defarge never taking hers from the prisoner, Defarge never 
taking his from his feasting wife, and all the other eyes there intent upon 
the Doctor, who saw none of them — the paper was read, as follows. 


CHAPTER X 


THE SUBSTANCE OF THE SHADOPF 

ALEXANDRE MANETTE, unfortunate physician, native of 
Beauvais, and afterwards resident in Paris, write this melancholy 
paper in my doleful cell in the Bastille, during the last month of the 
year, 1767* I write it at stolen intervals, under every difficulty. I 
design to secrete it in the wall of the chimney, where I have slowly and 
laboriously made a place of concealment for it. Some pitying hand may 
find it there, when I and my sorrows are dust. 

“ These words are formed by the rusty iron point with which I write 
with difficulty in scrapings of soot and charcoal from the chimney, mixed 
with blood, in the last month of the tenth year of my captivity. Hope 
has quite departed from my breast. I know from terrible warnings I 
have noted in myself that my reason will not long remain unimpaired, 
but I solemnly declare that I am at this time in the possession of my 
right mind — that my memory is exact and circumstantial — and that I 
write the truth as I shall answer for these my last recorded words, 
whether they be ever read by men or not, at the Eternal Judgment-seat. 

“ One cloudy moonlight night, in the third week of December (I think 
the twenty-second of the month) in the year 1757, I was walking on a 
retired part of the quay by the Seine for the refreshment of the frosty 
air, at an hour’s distance from my place of residence in the Street of the 
School of Medicine, when a carriage came along behind me, driven very 
fast. As I stood aside to let that carriage pass, apprehensive that it 
might otherwise run me down, a head was put out at the window, and 
a voice called to the driver to stop. 

“ The carriage stopped as soon as the driver could rein in his horses, 
and the same voice called to me by my name. I answered. The car- 
riage was then so far in advance of me that two gentlemen had time 
to open the door and alight before I came up with it. I observed that 
they were both wrapped in cloaks, and appeared to conceal themselves. 
As they stood side by side near the carriage door, I also observed that 

307 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


308 

they both looked of about my own age, or rather younger, and that they 
were greatly alike, in stature, manner, voice, and (as far as I could 
see) face too. 

“ ‘ You are Doctor Manette? ’ said one. 

“ ‘ 1 am.’ 

“ ‘ Doctor Manette, formerly of Beauvais,’ said the other; ‘ the young 
physician, originally an expert surgeon, who within the last year or 
two has made a rising reputation in Paris? ’ 

“ ‘ Gentlemen,’ I returned, ‘ I am that Doctor Manette of whom you 
speak so graciously.’ 

“ ‘ We have been to your residence,’ said the first, ‘ and not being 
so fortunate as to find you there, and being informed that you were 
probably walking in this direction, we followed, in the hope of over- 
taking you. Will you please to enter the carriage? ’ 

“ The manner of both was imperious, and they both moved, as these 
words were spoken, so as to place me between themselves and the car- 
riage door. They were armed. I was not. 

“ ‘ Gentlemen,’ said I, ‘ pardon me; but I usually inquire who does me 
the honor to seek my assistance, and what is the nature of the case 
to which I am summoned.’ 

“ The reply to this was made by him who had spoken second. ‘ Doc- 
tor, your clients are people of condition. As to the nature of the case, 
our confidence in your skill assures us that you will ascertain it for 
yourself better than we can describe it. Enough. Will you please 
to enter the carriage? ’ 

“ I could do nothing but comply, and I entered it in silence. They 
both entered after me — the last springing in, after putting up the 
steps. The carriage turned about, and drove on at its former speed. 

“ I repeat this conversation exactly as it occurred. I have no doubt 
that it is, word for word, the same. I describe everything exactly as it 
took place, constraining my mind not to wander from the task. Where 
I make the broken marks that follow here, I leave off for the time, and 
put my paper in its hiding-place. . . . 

“ The carriage left the streets behind, passed the North Barrier, and 
emerged upon the country road. At two-thirds of a league from the 
Barrier — I did not estimate the distance at that time, but afterwards 
when I traversed it — it struck out of the main avenue, and presently 
stopped at a solitary house. We all three alighted, and walked, by a 


309 


THE SUBSTANCE OF THE SHADOW 

damp soft footpath in a garden where a neglected fountain had over- 
flowed, to the door of the house. It was not opened immediately, in 
answer to the ringing of the bell, and one of my two conductors struck 
the man who opened it, with his heavy riding-glove, across the face. 

“ There was nothing in this action to attract my particular attention, 
for I had seen common people struck more commonly than dogs. But, 
the other of the two, being angry likewise, struck the man in like man- 
ner with his arm; the look and bearing of the brothers were then so 
exactly alike, that I then first perceived them to be twin brothers. 

“ From the time of our alighting at the outer gate (which we found 
locked, and which one of the brothers had opened to admit us, and had 
re-locked) , I had heard cries proceeding from an upper chamber. I was 
conducted to this chamber straight, the cries growing louder as we 
ascended the stairs, and I found a patient in a high fever of the brain, 
lying on a bed. 

“The patient was a woman of great beauty, and young; assuredly 
not much past twenty. Her hair was torn and ragged, and her arms 
were bound to her sides with sashes and handkerchiefs. I noticed that 
these bonds were all portions of a gentleman’s dress. On one of them, 
which was a fringed scarf for a dress of ceremony, I saw the armorial 
bearings of a Noble, and the letter E. 

“ I saw this, within the first minute of my contemplation of the pa- 
tient; for, in her restless strivings she had turned over on her face on 
the edge of the bed, had drawn the end of the scarf into her mouth, and 
was in danger of suffocation. My first act was to put out my hand to 
relieve her breathing; and in moving the scarf aside, the embroidery in 
the corner caught my sight. 

“ I turned her gently over, placed my hands upon her breast to calm 
her and keep her down, and looked into her face. Her eyes were dilated 
and wild, and she constantly uttered piercing shrieks, and repeated the 
words, ‘ My husband, my father, and my brother ! ’ and then counted 
up to twelve, and said, ‘Hush!’ For an instant, and no more, she 
would pause to listen, and then the piercing shrieks would begin again, 
and she would repeat the cry, ‘ My husband, my father, and my 
brother 1 ’ and would count up to twelve, and say ‘ Hush 1 ’ There was 
no variation in the order, or the manner. There was no cessation, but 
the regular moment’s pause, in the utterance of these sounds. 

“ ‘How long,’ I asked, ‘ has this lasted? ’ 


310 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ To distinguish the brothers, I will call them the elder and the 
younger; by the elder, I mean him who exercised the most authority. It 
was the elder who replied, ‘ Since about this hour last night.’ 

“ ‘ She has a husband, a father, and a brother? ’ 

“ ‘ A brother.’ 

“ ‘ I do not address her brother? ’ 

“ He answered with great contempt, ‘ No.’ 

“ ‘ She has some recent association with the number twelve? ’ 

“ The younger brother impatiently rejoined, ‘ With twelve o’clock.’ 

“ ‘ See, gentlemen,’ said I, still keeping my hands upon her breast, 
‘ how useless I am, as you have brought me ! If I had known what I was 
coming to see, I could have come provided. As it is, time must be lost. 
There are no medicines to be obtained in this lonely place.’ 

“ The elder brother looked to the younger, who said haughtily, 
‘ There is a case of medicines here ’ ; and brought it from a closet, and 
put it on the table. . . . 

“ I opened some of the bottles, smelt them, and put the stoppers to 
my lips. If I had wanted to use anything save narcotic medicines that 
were poisons in themselves, I would not have administered any of those. 

“ ‘ Do you doubt them? ” asked the younger brother. 

“ ‘ You see, monsieur, I am going to use them,’ I replied, and said no 
more. 

“ I made the patient swallow, with great difficulty, and after many 
efforts, the dose that I desired to give. As I intended to repeat it after 
a while, and as it was necessary to watch its influence, I then sat down by 
the side of the bed. There was a timid and suppressed woman in at- 
tendance (wife of the man downstairs), who had retreated into a 
corner. The house was damp and decayed, indifferently furnished — 
evidently, recently occupied and temporarily used. Some thick old 
hangings had been nailed up before the windows, to deaden the sound 
of the shrieks. They continued to be uttered in their regular succes- 
sion, with the cry, ‘ My husband, my father, and my brother I ’ the 
counting up to twelve, and ‘ Hush ! ’ The frenzy was so violent, that I 
had not unfastened the bandages restraining the arms; but, I had looked 
to them, to see that they were not painful. The only spark of en- 
couragement in the case, was, that my hand upon the sufferer’s breast 
had this much soothing influence, that for minutes at a time it tran- 


THE SUBSTANCE OF THE SHADOW 


311 

quilized the figure. It had no effect upon the cries ; no pendulum could 
be more regular. 

“ For the reason that my hand had this effect (I assume), I had sat 
by the side of the bed for half an hour, with the two brothers looking 
on, before the elder said: 

“ ‘ There is another patient.’ 

“ I was startled, and asked, ‘ Is it a pressing case? ’ 

“‘You had better see,’ he carelessly answered; and took up a 
light. . . . 

“ The other patient lay in a back room across a second staircase, which 
was a species of loft over a stable. There was a low plastered ceiling 
to a part of it; the rest was open, to the ridge of the tiled roof, and there 
were beams across. Hay and straw were stored in that portion of the 
place, fagots for firing, and a heap of apples in sand. I had to pass 
through that part, to get at the other. My memory is circumstantial 
and unshaken. I try it with these details, and I see them all, in this my 
cell in the Bastille, near the close of the tenth year of my captivity, as I 
saw them all that night. 

“ On some hay on the ground, with a cushion thrown under his head, 
lay a handsome peasant boy — a boy of not more than seventeen at the 
most. He lay on his back, with his teeth set, his right hand clenched on- 
his breast, and his glaring eyes looking straight upward. I could not 
see where his wound was, as I kneeled on one knee over him; but, I 
could see that he was dying of a wound from a sharp point. 

“ ‘ I am a doctor, my poor fellow,’ said I. ‘ Let me examine It.’ 

“ ‘ I do not want it examined,’ he answered; ‘ let it be.’ 

“ It was under his hand, and I soothed him to let me move his hand 
away. The wound was a sword-thrust, received from twenty to twenty- 
four hours before, but no skill could have saved him If It had been looked 
to without delay. He was then dying fast. As I turned my eyes to the 
elder brother, I saw him looking down at this handsome boy whose life 
was ebbing out, as if he were a wounded bird, or hare, or rabbit; not at 
all as If he were a fellow-creature. 

“ ‘ How has this been done, monsieur? ’ said I. 

“ ‘A crazed young common dog! A serf! Forced my brother to 
draw upon him, and has fallen by my brother’s sword — like a gentle- 
man.’ 


312 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ There was no touch of pity, sorrow, or kindred humanity, in this 
answer. The speaker seemed to acknowledge that it was inconvenient 
to have that different order of creature dying there, and that it would 
have been better if he had died in the usual obscure routine of his 
vermin kind. He was quite incapable of any compassionate feeling 
about the boy, or about his fate. 

‘‘ The boy’s eyes had slowly moved to him as he had spoken, and 
they now slowly moved to me. 

“ ‘ Doctor, they are very proud, these Nobles; but we common dogs 
are proud too, sometimes. They plunder us, outrage us, beat us, kill us; 
but we have a little pride left, sometimes. She — have you seen her. 
Doctor? ’ 

“ The shrieks and the cries were audible there, though subdued by 
the distance. He referred to them, as if she were lying in our presence. 

‘‘ I said, ‘ I have seen her.’ 

“ ‘ She is my sister. Doctor. They have had their shameful rights, 
these Nobles, in the modesty and virtue of our sisters, many years, but 
we have had good girls among us. I know it, and have heard my father 
say so. She was a good girl. She was betrothed to a good young man, 
too; a tenant of his. We were all tenants of his — that man’s who 
stands there. The other is his brother, the worst of a bad race.” 

“ It was with the greatest difficulty that the boy gathered bodily force 
to speak; but, his spirit spoke with a dreadful emphasis. 

“ ‘ We were so robbed by that man who stands there, as all we com- 
mon dogs are by those superior Beings — taxed by him without mercy, 
obliged to work for him without pay, obliged to grind our corn at his 
mill, obliged to feed scores of his tame birds on our wretched crops, 
and forbidden for our lives to keep a single tame bird of our own, 
pillaged and plundered to that degree that when we chanced to have 
a bit of meat, we ate it in fear, with the door barred and the shutters 
closed, that his people should not see it and take it from us — I say, we 
were so robbed, and hunted, and were made so poor, that our father 
told us it was a dreadful thing to bring a child into the world, and that 
what we should most pray for, was, that our women might be barren and 
our miserable race die out I ’ 

“ I had never before seen the sense of being oppressed, bursting 
forth like a fire. I had supposed that it must be latent in the people 


THE SUBSTANCE OF THE SHADOW 313 

somewhere ; but, I had never seen it break out, until I saw it in the dying 
boy. 

“ ‘ Nevertheless, Doctor, my sister married. He was ailing at that 
time, poor fellow, and she married her lover, that she might tend and 
comfort him in our cottage — our dog-hut, as that man would call it. 
She had not been married many weeks, when that man’s brother saw 
her and admired her, and asked that man to lend her to him — for 
what are husbands among us ! He was willing enough, but my sister was 
good and virtuous, and hated his brother with a hatred as strong as 
mine. What did the two then, to persuade her husband to use his in- 
fluence with her, to make her willing? ’ 

“ The boy’s eyes, which had been fixed on mine, slowly turned to the 
looker-on, and I saw in the two faces that all he said was true. The two 
opposing kinds of pride confronting one another, I can see, even in this 
Bastille; the gentleman’s, all negligent indifference; the peasant’s, all 
trodden-down sentiment, and passionate revenge. 

“ ‘ You know. Doctor, that it is among the Rights of these Nobles 
to harness us common dogs to carts, and drive us. They so harnessed 
him and drove him. You know that it is among their Rights to keep 
us in their grounds all night, quieting the frogs, in order that their noble 
sleep may not be disturbed. They kept him out in the unwholesome 
mists at night, and ordered him back into his harness in the day. But 
he was not persuaded. No I Taken out of harness one day at noon, 
to feed — if he could find food — he sobbed twelve times, one for 
every stroke of the bell, and died on her bosom.’ 

“ Nothing human could have held life in the boy but his determination 
to tell all his wrong. He forced back the gathering shadows of death, 
as he forced his clenched right hand to remain clenched, and to cover 
his wound. 

“ ‘ Then, with that man’s permission and even with his aid, his brother 
took her away; in spite of what I know she must have told his brother 
— and what that is, will not be long unknown to you. Doctor, if it is 
now — his brother took her away — for his pleasure and diversion, for 
a little while. I saw her pass me on the road. When I took the tidings 
home, our father’s heart burst; he never spoke one of the words that 
filled it. I took my young sister (for I have another) to a place beyond 
the reach of this man, and where, at least, she will never be his vassal. 
Then, I tracked the brother here, and last night climbed in — a com- 


314 A TALE OF TWO CITIES 

mon dog, but sword in hand. Where is the loft window? It was 
somewhere here ? ’ 

‘■■The room was darkening to his sight; the world was narrowing 
around him. I glanced about me, and saw that the hay and straw were 
trampled over the floor, as if there had been a struggle. 

“ ‘ She heard me, and ran in. I told her not to come near us till 
he was dead. He came in and first tossed me some pieces of money; 
then struck at me with a whip. But I, though a common dog, so struck 
at him as to make him draw. Let him break into as many, pieces as he 
will, the sword that he stained with my common blood; he drew to 
defend himself — thrust at me with all his skill for his life.’ 

“ My glance had fallen, but a few moments before, on the fragments 
of a broken sword, lying among the hay. That weapon was a gentle- 
man’s. In another place, lay an old sword that seemed to have been a 
soldier’s. 

“ ‘ Now, lift me up. Doctor; lift me up. Where is he? ’ 

“ ‘ He is not here,’ I said, supporting the boy, and thinking that he 
referred to the brother. 

“ ‘ He ! Proud as these Nobles are, he is afraid to see me. Where 
is the man who was here? Turn my face to him.’ 

“ I did so, raising the boy’s head against my knee. But, invested 
for the moment with extraordinary power, he raised himself completely, 
obliging me to rise too, or I could not have still supported him. 

“ ‘ Marquis,’ said the boy, turned to him with his eyes opened wide, 
and his right hand raised, ‘ in the days when all these things are to be 
answered for, I summon you and yours, to the last of your bad race, to 
answer for them. I mark this cross of blood upon you, as a sign that 
I do it. In the days when all these things are to be answered for, I sum- 
mon your brother, the worst of the bad race, to answer for them sepa- 
rately. I mark this cross of blood upon him, as a sign that I do it.* 

“ Twice, he put his hand to the wound in his breast, and with his fore- 
finger drew a cross in the air. He stood for an instant with the finger 
yet raised, and, as it dropped, he dropped with it, and I laid him down 
dead. . . . 

“ When I returned to the bedside of the young woman, I found her 
raving in precisely the same order and continuity. I knew that this 
might last for many hours, and that it would probably end in the silence 
of the grave. 


THE SUBSTANCE OF THE SHADOW 


315 

“ I repeated the medicines I had given her, and I sat at the side of 
the bed until the night was far advanced. She never abated the piercing 
quality of her shrieks, never stumbled in the distinctness or the order 
of her words. They were always ‘ My husband, my father, and my 
brother ! One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, 
twelve. Hush ! ’ 

“ This lasted twenty-six hours from the time when I first saw her. I 
had come and gone twice, and was again sitting by her, when she began 
to falter. I did what little could be done to assist that opportunity, and 
by and by she sank into a lethargy, and lay like the dead. 

“ It was as if the wind and rain had lulled at last, after a long and 
fearful storm. I released her arms, and called the woman to assist me 
to compose her figure and the dress she had torn. It was then that I 
knew her condition to be that of one in whom the first expectations of 
being a mother have arisen ; and it was then that I lost the little hope I 
had had of her. 

“ ‘Is she dead?* asked the Marquis, whom I will still describe as 
the elder brother, coming booted into the room from his horse. 

“ ‘ Not dead,’ said I; ‘ but like to die.’ 

“ ‘ What strength there is in these common bodies ! ’ he said, looking 
down at her with some curiosity. 

“ ‘ There is prodigious strength,’ I answered him, ‘ in sorrow and 
despair.’ 

“ He first laughed at my words, and then frowned at them. He 
moved a chair with his foot near to mine, ordered the woman away, and 
aaid in a subdued voice, 

“ ‘ Doctor, finding my brother in this difficulty with these hinds, I 
recommended that your aid should be invited. Your reputation is high, 
and, as a young man with your fortune to make, you are probably mind- 
ful of your interest. The things that you see here, are things to be seen, 
and not spoken of.’ 

“ I listened to the patient’s breathing, and avoided answering. 

“ ‘ Do you honor me with your attention. Doctor? ’ 

“ ‘ Monsieur,’ said I, ‘ in my profession, the communications of pa- 
tients are always received in confidence.’ I was guarded in my answer, 
for I was troubled in my mind with what I had heard and seen. 

“ Her breathing was so difficult to trace, that I carefully tried the 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


316 

pulse and the heart. There was life, and no more. Looking round 
as I resumed my seat, I found both the brothers intent upon me. . . . 

“ I write with so much difficulty, the cold is so severe, I am so fear- 
ful of being detected and consigned to an underground cell and total 
darkness, that I must abridge this narrative. There Is no confusion or 
failure in my memory; it can recall, and could detail, every word that 
was ever spoken between me and those brothers. 

“ She lingered for a week. Towards the last, I could understand 
some few syllables that she said to me, by placing my ear close to her 
lips. She asked me where she was, and I told her; who I was, and I 
told her. It was in vain that I asked her for her family name. She 
faintly shook her head upon the pillow, and kept her secret, as the boy 
had done. 

“ I had no opportunity of asking her any question, until I had told 
the brothers she was sinking fast, and could not live another day. Un- 
til then, though no one was ever presented to her consciousness save the 
woman and myself, one or other of them had always jealously sat behind 
the curtain at the head of the bed when I was there. But when it 
came to that, they seemed careless what communication I might hold 
with her; as if — the thought passed through my mind — I were dying 
too. 

“ I always observed that their pride bitterly resented the younger 
brother’s (as I call him) having crossed swords with a peasant, and that 
peasant a boy. The only consideration that appeared to affect the mind 
of either of them was the consideration that this was highly degrading 
to the family, and was ridiculous. As often as I caught the younger 
brother’s eyes, their expression reminded me that he disliked me deeply, 
for knowing what I knew from the boy. He was smoother and more 
polite to me than the elder; but I saw this. I also saw that I was an in- 
cumbrance In the mind of the elder, too. 

“ My patient died, two hours before midnight — at a time, by my 
watch, answering almost to the minute when I had first seen her. I 
was alone with her, when her forlorn young head drooped gently on one 
side, and all her earthly wrongs and sorrows ended. 

“ The brothers were waiting In a room downstairs, impatient to ride 
away. I had heard them, alone at the bedside, striking their boots with 
their riding-whips, and loitering up and down. 

“ ‘ At last she is dead? ’ said the elder, when I went in. 


THE SUBSTANCE OF THE SHADOW 317 

‘ She is dead,’ said 1. 

I congratulate you, my brother,’ were his words as he turned 
round. 

He had before offered me money, which I had postponed taking. 
He now gave me a rouleau of gold. I took it from his hand, but laid 
it on the table. I had considered the question, and had resolved to ac- 
cept nothing. 

Pray excuse me,’ said I. ‘ Under the circumstances, no.’ 

They exchanged looks, but bent their heads to me as I bent mine 
to them, and we parted without another word on either side. . . . 

“ I am weary, weary, weary — worn down by misery. I cannot read 
what I have written with this gaunt hand. 

“ Early in the morning, the rouleau of gold was left at my door in a 
little box, with my name on the outside. From the first, I had anxiously 
considered what I ought to do. I decided, that day, to write privately 
to the Minister, stating the nature of the two cases to which I had 
been summoned, and the place to which I had gone : in effect, stating all 
the circumstances. I knew what Court influence was, and what the 
immunities of the Nobles were, and I expected that the matter would 
never be heard of; but, I wished to relieve my own mind. I had kept 
the matter a profound secret, even from my wife; and this, too, I 
resolved to state in my letter. I had no apprehension whatever of my 
real danger; but I was conscious that there might be danger for others, 
if others were compromised by possessing the knowledge that I possessed. 

“ I was much engaged that day, and could not complete my letter 
that night. I rose long before my usual time next morning to finish it. 
It was the last day of the year. The letter was lying before me just 
completed, when I was told that a lady waited, who wished to see me. . . . 

“ I am growing more and more unequal to the task I have set myself. 
It is so cold, so dark, my senses are so benumbed, and the gloom upon me 
is so dreadful. 

“ The lady was young, engaging, and handsome, but not marked for 
long life. She was in great agitation. She presented herself to me as 
the wife of the Marquis St. Evremonde. I connected the title by which 
the boy had addressed the elder brother, with the initial letter embroid- 
ered on the scarf, and had no difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that 
I had seen that nobleman very lately. 

“ My memory is still accurate, but I cannot write the words of our 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


318 

conversation. I suspect that I am watched more closely than I was, 
and I know not at what times I may be watched. She had in part sus- 
pected, and in part discovered, the main facts of the cruel story, of her 
husband’s share in it, and my being resorted to. She did not know that 
the girl was dead. Her hope had been, she said in great distress, to 
show her, in secret, a woman’s sympathy. Her hope had been to avert 
the wrath of Heaven from a House that had long been hateful to the 
suffering many. 

“ She had reasons for believing that there was a young sister living, 
and her greatest desire was, to help that sister. I could tell her nothing 
but that there was such a sister; beyond that, I knew nothing. Her 
inducement to come to me, relying on my confidence, had been the hope 
that I could tell her the name and place of abode. Whereas, to this 
wretched hour I am ignorant of both. . . . 

“ These scraps of paper fail me. One was taken from me, with a 
warning, yesterday. I must finish my record to-day. 

“ She was a good, compassionate lady, and not happy in her mar- 
riage. How could she be ! The brother distrusted and disliked her, 
and his influence was all opposed to her; she stood in dread of him, and 
in dread of her husband too. When I handed her down to the door, 
there was a child, a pretty boy from two to three years old, in her 
carriage. 

“ ‘ For his sake. Doctor,’ she said, pointing to him in tears, ‘ I would 
do all I can to make what poor amends I can. He will never prosper 
in his inheritance otherwise. I have a presentiment that if no other 
innocent atonement is made for this, it will one day be required of 
him. What I have left to call my own — it is little beyond the worth 
of a few jewels — I will make it the first charge of his life to bestow, 
with the compassion and lamenting of his dead mother, on this injured 
family, if the sister can be discovered.’ 

“ She kissed the boy, and said, caressing him, ‘ It is for thine own 
dear sake. Thou wilt be faithful, little Charles?’ The child an- 
swered her bravely, ‘ YesI ’ I kissed her hand, and she took him in 
her arms, and went away caressing him. I never saw her more. 

“ As she had mentioned her husband’s name in the faith that I knew 
it, I added no mention of it to my letter. I sealed my letter, and, not 
trusting it out of my own hands, delivered it myself that day. 

“ That night, the last night of the year, towards nine o’clock, a man 


THE SUBSTANCE OF THE SHADOW 319 

m a black dress rang at my gate, demanded to see me, and softly fol- 
lowed my servant, Ernest Defarge, a youth, upstairs. When my serv- 
ant came into the room where I sat with my wife — O my wife, be- 
loved of my heart! My fair young English wife! — we saw the man, 
who was supposed to be at the gate, standing silent behind him. 

An urgent case in the Rue St. Honore, he said. It would not de- 
tain me, he had a coach in waiting. 

“ It brought me here, it brought me to my grave. When I was clear 
of the house, a black muffler was drawn tightly over my mouth from 
behind, and my arms were pinioned. The two brother’s crossed the 
road from a dark corner, and identified me with a single gesture. The 
Marquis took from his pocket the letter I had written, showed it me, 
burnt it in the light of a lantern that was held, and extinguished the 
ashes with his foot. Not a word was spoken. I was brought here, I 
was brought to my living grave. 

“ If it had pleased God to put it in the hard heart of either of the 
brothers, in all these frightful years, to grant me any tidings of my 
dearest wife — so much as to let me know by a word whether alive or 
dead — I might have thought that He had not quite abandoned them. 
But, now I believe that the mark of the red cross is fatal to them, and 
that they have no part in His mercies. And them and their descend- 
ants, to the last of their race, I, Alexandre Manette, unhappy prisoner, 
do this last night of the year 1767, in my unbearable agony, denounce 
to the times when all these things shall be answered for. I denounce 
them to Heaven and to earth.” 


A terrible sound arose when the reading of this document was done. 
A sound of craving and eagerness that had nothing articulate in it but 
blood. The narrative called up the most revengeful passions of the 
time, and there was not a head in the nation but must have dropped 
before it. 

Little need, in presence of that tribunal and that auditory, to show 
how the Defarges had not made the paper public, with the other cap- 
tured Bastille memorials borne in procession, and had kept it, biding 
their time. Little need to show that this detested family name had 
long been anathematized by Saint Antoine, and was wrought into the 
fatal register. The man never trod ground whose virtues and services 


320 A TALE OF TWO CITIES 

would have sustained him in that place that day, against such denuncia- 
tion. 

And all the worse for the doomed man, that the denouncer was a 
well-known citizen, his own attached friend, the father of his wife. One 
of the frenzied aspirations of the populace was, for imitations of the 
questionable public virtues of antiquity, and for sacrifices and self- 
immolations on the people’s altar. Therefore when the President said 
(else had his own head quivered on his shoulders), that the good 
physician of the Republic would deserve better still of the Republic by 
rooting out an obnoxious family of Aristocrats, and would doubtless 
feel a sacred glow and joy in making his daughter a widow and her 
child an orphan, there was wild excitement, patriotic fervor, not a touch 
of human sympathy. 

“ Much influence around him, has that Doctor? ” murmured Madame 
Defarge, smiling to The Vengeance. “ Save him now, my Doctor, save 
him ! ” 

At every juryman’s vote, there was a roar. Another and another. 
Roar and roar. 

Unanimously voted. At heart and by descent an Aristocrat, an 
enemy of the Republic, a notorious oppressor of the People. Back to 
the Conciergerie, and Death within four-and-twenty hours ! 


CHAPTER XI 


DUSK 



HE wretched wife of the innocent man thus doomed to die, fell 


JL under the sentence, as if she had been mortally stricken. But, 
she uttered no sound; and so strong was the voice within her, represent- 
ing that it was she of all the world who must uphold him in his misery 
and not augment it, that it quickly raised her, even from that shock. 

The judges having to take part in a public demonstration out of 
doors, the tribunal adjourned. The quick noise and movement of the 
court’s emptying itself by many passages had not ceased, when Lucie 
stood stretching out her arms towarda her husband, with nothing in her 
face but love and consolation. 

“ If I might touch him! If I might embrace him once! O, good 
citizens, if you would have so much compassion for us ! ” 

There was but a gaoler left, along with two of the four men who 
had taken him last night, and Barsad. The people had all poured out 
to the show in the streets. Barsad proposed to the rest, “ Let her 
embrace him then; it is but a moment.” It was silently acquiesced in, 
and they passed her over the seats in the hall to a raised place, where he, 
by leaning over the dock, could fold her in his arms. 

“ Farewell, dear darling of my soul. My parting blessing on my 
love. We shall meet again, where the weary are at rest! ” 

They were her husband’s words, as he held her to his bosom. 

“I can bear it, dear Charles. I am supported from above; don’t 
suffer for me. A parting blessing for our- child.” 

“ I send it to her by you. I kiss her by you. I say farewell to her 
by you.” 

“ My husband. No ! A moment ! ” He was tearing himself apart 
from her. “ We shall not be separated long. I feel that this will 
break my heart by and by; but I will do my duty while I can, and when 
I leave her, God will raise up friends for her, as He did for me.” 

Her father had followed her, and would have fallen on his knees to 
both of them, but that Darnay put out a hand and seized him, crying: 


322 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ No, no ! What have you done, what have you done, that you should 
kneel to us! We know now, what a struggle you made of old. We 
know now, what you underwent when you suspected my descent, and 
when you knew it. We know now, the natural antipathy you strove 
against, and conquered, for her dear sake. We thank you with all our 
hearts, and all our love and duty. Heaven be with you 1 ” 

Her father’s only answer was to draw his hands through his white 
hair, and wring them with a shriek of anguish. 

“ It could not be otherwise,” said the prisoner. “ All things have 
worked together as they have fallen out. It was the always-vain en- 
deavor to discharge my poor mother’s trust that first brought my fatal 
presence near you. Good could never come of such evil, a happier end 
was not in nature to so unhappy a beginning. Be comforted, and for- 
give me. Heaven bless you I ” 

As he was drawn away, his wife released him, and stood looking after 
him with her hands touching one another in the attitude of prayer, and 
with a radiant look upon her face, in which there was even a comforting 
smile. As he went out at the prisoners’ door, she turned, laid her head 
lovingly on her father’s breast, tried to speak to him, and fell at his feet. 

Then, issuing from the obscure corner from which he had never 
moved, Sydney Carton came and took her up. Only her father and 
Mr. Lorry were with her. His arm trembled as it raised her, and sup- 
ported her head. Yet, there was an air about him that was not all of 
pity — that had a flush of pride in it. 

“ Shall I take her to a coach? I shall never feel her weight.” 

He carried her lightly to the door, and laid her tenderly down in a 
coach. Her father and their old friend got into it, and he took his 
seat beside the driver. 

When they arrived at the gateway where he had paused in the dark 
not many hours before, to picture to himself on which of the rough 
stones of the street her feet had trodden, he lifted her again, and carried 
her up the staircase to their rooms. There, he laid her down on a 
couch, where her child and Miss Pross wept over her. 

“ Don’t recall her to herself,” he said, softly, to the latter, “ she is 
better so. Don’t revive her to consciousness, while she only faints.” 

“ Oh, Carton, Carton, dear Carton 1 ” cried little Lucie, springing up 
and throwing her arms passionately round him, in a burst of grief. 
“ Now that you have come, I think you will do something to help 


DUSK 


323 

mamma, something to save papa ! Oh, look at her, dear Carton ! Can 
you, of all the people who love her, bear to see her so? ” 

He bent over the child, and laid her blooming cheek against his face. 
He put her gently from him, and looked at her unconscious mother. 

“ Before I go,” he said, and paused — “I may kiss her? ” 

It was remembered afterwards that when he bent down and touched 
her face with his lips, he murmured some words. The child, who was 
nearest to him, told them afterwards, and told her grandchildren when 
she was a handsome old lady, that she heard him say, “ A life you love.” 

When he had gone out into the next room, he turned suddenly on 
Mr. Lorry and her father, who were following, and said to the latter: 

“ You had great influence but yesterday, Doctor Manette; let it at 
least be tried. These judges, and all the men in power, are very friendly 
to you, and very recognizant of your services; are they not? ” 

“ Nothing connected with Charles was concealed from me. I had the 
strongest assurances that I should save him; and I did.” He returned 
the answer in great trouble, and very slowly. 

“ Try them again. The hours between this and to-morrow afternoon 
are few and short, but try.” 

“ I intend to try. I will not rest a moment.” 

“ That's well. I have known such energy as yours do great things 
before now — though never,” he added, with a smile and a sigh to- 
gether, “ such great things as this. But try! Of little worth as life is 
when we misuse it, it is worth that effort. It would cost nothing to lay 
down if it were not.” 

“ I will go,” said Doctor Manette, “ to the Prosecutor and the Presi- 
dent straight, and I will go to others whom it is better not to name. I 
will write, too, and — but stay! There is a celebration in the streets, 
and no one will be accessible until dark.” 

“ That’s true. Well ! It Is a forlorn hope at the best, and not much 
the forlorner for being delayed till dark. I should like to know how 
you speed; though, mind! I expect nothing! When are you likely to 
have seen these dread powers. Doctor Manette? ” 

“ Immediately after dark, I should hope. Within an hour or two 

from this.” 

“ It will be dark soon after four. Let us stretch the hour or two. 
If I go to Mr. Lorry’s at nine, shall I hear what you have done, either 
from our friend or from yourself? ” 


324 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ Yes.” 

“ May you prosper! ” 

Mr. Lorry followed Sydney to the outer door, and, touching him on 
the shoulder as he was going away, caused him to turn. 

“ I have no hope,” said Mr. Lorry, in a low and sorrowful whisper. 

“ Nor have I.” 

“ If any one of these men, or all of these men, were disposed to spare 
him — which Is a large supposition; for what Is his life, or any man’s, to 
them ! I doubt If they durst spare him after the demonstration in the 
court.” 

“ And so do I. I heard the fall of the ax In that sound.” 

Mr. Lorry leaned his arm upon the door-post, and bowed his face 
upon It. 

“Don’t despond,” said Carton, very gently; “don’t grieve. I en- 
couraged Doctor Manette In this Idea, because I felt that It might one 
day be consolatory to her. Otherwise, she might think ‘ his life was 
wantonly thrown away or wasted.’ and that might trouble her.” 

“ Yes, yes, yes,” returnd Mr. Lorry, drying his eyes, “ you are right. 
Bu^ he will perish; there is no real hope.” 

“ Yes. He will perish; there is no real hope,” echoed Carton. And 
walked with a settled step, downstairs. 


CHAPTER XII 


DARKNESS 

S YDNEY CARTON paused in the street, not quite decided where 
to go. “ At Tellson’s banking-house at nine,” he said, with a 
musing face. “ Shall I do well, in the meantime, to show myself? I 
think so. It is best that these people should know there is such a man 
as I here; it is a sound precaution, and may be a necessary preparation. 
But care, care, care! Let me think it out! ” 

Checking his steps which had begun to tend towards an object, he 
took a turn or two in the already darkening street, and traced the 
thought in his mind to its possible consequences. His first impression 
was confirmed. “ It is best,” he said, finally resolved, “ that these peo- 
ple should know there is such a man as I here.” And he turned his face 
towards Saint Antoine. 

Defarge had described himself, that day, as the keeper of a wine-shop 
in the Saint Antoine suburb. It was not difficult for one who knew the 
city well, to find his house without asking any question. Having ascer- 
tained its situation. Carton came out of those closer streets again, and 
dined at a place of refreshment and fell sound asleep after dinner. For 
the first time in many years, he had no strong drink. Since last night he 
had taken nothing but a little light thin wine, and last night he had 
dropped the brandy slowly down on Mr. Lorry’s hearth like a man who 
had done with it. 

It was as late as seven o’clock when he awoke refreshed, and went out 
into the streets again. As he passed along towards Saint Antoine, he 
stopped at a shop-window where there was a mirror, and slightly altered 
the disordered arrangement of his loose cravat, and his coat-collar, and 
his wild hair. This done, he went on direct to Defarge’s, and went in. 

There happened to be no customer in the shop but Jacques Three, of 
the restless fingers and the croaking voice. This man, whom he had 
seen upon the Jury, stood drinking at the little counter, in conversation 
with the Defarges, man and wife. The Vengeance assisted in the con- 
versation, like a regular member of the establishment. 

325 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


326 

As Carton walked in, took his seat and asked (in very indifferent 
French) for a small measure of wine, Madame Defarge cast a careless 
glance at him, and then a keener, and then a keener, and then advanced 
to him herself, and asked him what it was he had ordered. 

He repeated what he had already said. 

“English?” asked Madame Defarge, inquisitively raising her dark 
eyebrows. 

After looking at her, as if the sound of even a single French word 
were slow to express itself to him, he answered, in his former strong 
foreign accent,/‘ Yes, madame, yes. I am English! ” 

Madame Defarge returned to her counter to get the wine, and, as he 
took up a Jacobin journal and feigned to pore over it puzzling out its 
meaning, he heard her say, “ I swear to you, like Evremonde! ” 

Defarge brought him the wine, and gave him Good-evening. 

“ How?” 

“ Good-evening.” 

“ Oh I Good-evening, citizen,” filling his glass. “ Ah 1 and good 
wine. I drink to the Republic.” 

Defarge went back to the counter, and said, “ Certainly, a little like.” 
Madame sternly retorted, “ I tell you a good deal like.” Jacques Three 
pacifically remarked, “ He is so much in your mind, see you, madame.” 
The amiable Vengeance added, with a laugh, “Yes, my faith! And 
you are looking forward with so much pleasure to seeing him once more 
to-morrow! ” 

Carton followed the lines and words of his paper, with a slow fore- 
finger, and with a studious and absorbed face. They were all leaning 
their arms on the counter close together, speaking low. After a silence 
of a few moments, during which they all looked towards him without 
disturbing his outward attention from the Jacobin editor, they resumed 
their conversation. 

“It is true what madame says,” observed Jacques Three. “Why 
stop ? There is great force in that. Why stop ? ” 

“ Well, well,” reasoned Defarge, “ but one must stop somewhere. 
After all, the question is still where ? ” 

“ At extermination,” said madame. 

“Magnificent!” croaked Jacques Three. The Vengeance, also, 
highly approved. 

“ Extermination is good doctrine, my wife,” said Defarge, rather 


DARKNESS 


327 

troubled; in general, I say nothing against it. But this Doctor has 
suffered much; you have seen him to-day; you have observed his face 
when the paper was read.” 

I have observed his face ! ” repeated madame, contemptuously and 
angrily. Yes. I have observed his face. I have observed his face 
to be not the face of a true friend of the Republic. Let him take care 
of his face ! ” 

And you have observed, my wife,” said Defarge, in a deprecatory 
manner, ” the anguish of his daughter, which must be a dreadful anguish 
to him ! ” 

“I have observed his daughter,” repeated madame; “yes, I have 
observed his daughter, more times than one. I have observed her to- 
day, and I have observed her other days. I have observed her in the 
court, and I have observed her in the street by the prison. Let me but 
lift my finger — !” She seemed to raise it (the listener’s eyes were 
always on his paper), and to let it fall with a rattle on the ledge before 
her, as if the ax had dropped. 

“ The citizeness is superb ! ” croaked the Juryman. 

“ She is an Angel I ” said The Vengeance, and embraced her. 

“ As to thee,” pursued madame, implacably, addressing her husband, 
“ if it depended on thee — which, happily, it does not — thou wouldst 
rescue this man even now.” 

“ No! ” protested Defarge. “ Not if to lift this glass would do it! 
But I would leave the matter there. I say, stop there.” 

“ See you then, Jacques,” said Madame Defarge, wrathfully; “ and 
see you, too, my little Vengeance; see you both! Listen! For other 
crimes as tyrants and oppressors, I have this race a long time on my 
register, doomed to destruction and extermination. Ask my husband, 
is that so.” 

“ It is so,” assented Defarge, without being asked. 

“ In the beginning of the great days, when the Bastille falls, he finds 
this paper of to-day, and he brings it home, and in the middle of the 
night when this place is clear and shut, we read it, here on this spot, by 
the light of this lamp. Ask him, is that so.” 

“ It is so,” assented Defarge. 

“ That night, I tell him, when the paper is read through, and the lamp 
is burnt out, and the day is gleaming in above those shutters and between 


328 A TALE OF TWO CITIES 

those iron bars, that I have now a secret to communicate. Ask him, is 
that so.” 

“ It is so,” assented Defarge. 

‘‘ I communicate to him that secret. I smite his bosom with these 
two hands as I smite it now, and I tell him, ‘ Defarge, I was brought up 
among the fishermen of the sea-shore, and that peasant family so injured 
by the two Evremonde brothers, as that Bastille paper describes, is my 
family. Defarge, that sister of the mortally wounded boy upon the 
ground was my sister, that husband was my sister’s husband, that unborn 
child was their child, that brother was my brother, that father was my 
father, those dead are my dead, and that summons to answer for those 
things descends to me ! ’ Ask him, is that so.” 

“ It is so,” assented Defarge once more. 

“Then tell Wind and Fire where to stop,” returned madame; “but 
don’t tell me.” 

Both her hearers derived a horrible enjoyment from the deadly nature 
of her wrath — the listener could feel how white she was, without seeing 
her — and both highly commended it. Defarge, a weak minority, inter- 
posed a few words for the memory of the compassionate wife of the 
Marquis; but only elicited from his own wife a repetition of her last 
reply. “ Tell the Wind and the Fire where to stop; not me ! ” 

Customers entered, and the group was broken up. The English cus- 
tomer paid for what he had had, perplexedly counted his change, and 
asked, as a stranger, to be directed towards the National Palace. Ma- 
dame Defarge took him to the door, and put her arm on his, in pointing 
out the road. The English customer was not without his reflections 
then, that it might be a good deed to seize that arm, lift it, and strike 
under it sharp and deep. 

But, he went his way, and was soon swallowed up in the shadow of 
the prison-wall. At the appointed hour, he emerged from it to present 
himself in Mr. Lorry’s room again, where he found the old gentleman 
walking to and fro in restless anxiety. He said he had been with Lucie 
until just now, and had only left her for a few minutes, to come and 
keep his appointment. Her father had not been seen, since he quitted 
the banking-house towards four o’clock. She had some faint hopes that 
his mediation might save Charles, but they were very slight. He had 
been more than five hours gone. Where could he be? 

Mr. Lorry waited until ten; but. Doctor Manette not returning, and 


DARKNESS 


329 

he being unwilling to leave Lucie any longer, it was arranged that he 
should go back to her, and come to the banking-house again at midnight. 
In the meanwhile. Carton would wait alone by the fire for the Doctor. 

He waited and waited, and the clock struck twelve; but Doctor 
Manette did not come back. Mr. Lorry returned, and found no tidings 
of him, and brought none. Where could he be? 

They were discussing this question, and were almost building up some 
weak structure of hope on his prolonged absence, when they heard him 
on the stairs. The instant he entered the room, it was plain that all was 
lost. 

Whether he had really been to any one, or whether he had been all 
that time traversing the streets, was never known. As he stood staring 
at them, they asked him no question, for his face told them everything. 

“ I cannot find it,” said he, “ and I must have it. Where is it? ” 

His head and throat were bare, and, as he spoke with a helpless look 
straying all around, he took his coat off, and let it drop on the floor. 

“Where is my bench? I have been looking everywhere for my 
bench, and I can’t find it. What have they done with my work? Time 
presses; I must finish those shoes.” 

They looked at one another, and their hearts died within them. 

“ Come, come ! ” said he, in a whimpering miserable way; “ let me get 
to work. Give me my work.” 

Receiving no answer, he tore his hair, and beat his feet upon the 
ground, like a distracted child. 

“ Don’t torture a poor forlorn wretch,” he implored them, with a 
dreadful cry; “but give me my work! What is to become of us, if 
those shoes are not done to-night? ” 

Lost, utterly lost I 

It was so clearly beyond hope to reason with him, or try to restore 
him, — that — as if by agreement — they each put a hand upon his 
shoulder, and soothed him to sit down before the fire, with a promise 
that he should have his work presently. He sank into the chair, and 
brooded over the embers, and shed tears. As if all that had happened 
since the garret time were a momentary fancy, or a dream, Mr. Lorry 
saw him shrink into the exact figure that Defarge had had in keeping. 

Affected, and impressed with terror as they both were, by this spec- 
tacle of ruin, it was not a time to yield to such emotions. His lonely 
daughter, bereft of her final hope and reliance, appealed to them both 


330 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


too strongly. Again, as if by agreement, they looked at one another 
with one meaning in their faces. Carton was the first to speak. 

“ The last chance is gone. It was not much. Yes; he had better be 
taken to her. But, before you go, will you, for a moment, steadily 
attend to me? Don’t ask me why I make the stipulations I am going 
to make, and exact the promise I am going to exact ; I have a reason — 
a good one.” 

“ I do not doubt it,” answered Mr. Lorry. “ Say on.” 

The figure in the chair between them, was all the time monotonously 
rocking itself to and fro, and moaning. They spoke in such a tone as 
they would have used if they had been watching by a sick-bed in the 
night. 

Carton stooped to pick up the coat, which lay almost entangling his 
feet. As he did so, a small case in which the Doctor was accustomed 
to carry the list of his day’s duties, fell lightly on the floor. Carton 
took it up, and there was a folded paper in it. “ We should look at 
this!” he said. Mr. Lorry nodded his consent. He opened it, and 
exclaimed, “ Thank God! ” 

“ What is it? ” asked Mr. Lorry, eagerly. 

“A moment! Let me speak of it in its place. First,” he put his 
hand in his coat, and took another paper from it, “ that is the certificate 
which enables me to pass out of this city. Look at it. You see — 
Sydney Carton, an Englishman? ” 

Mr. Lorry held it open in his hand, gazing in his earnest face. 

“ Keep it for me until to-morrow. I shall see him to-morrow, you 
remember, and I had better not take it into the prison.” 

“Why not?” 

“ I don’t know; I prefer not to do so. Now, take this paper that 
Doctor Manette has carried about him. It is a similar certificate, 
enabling him and his daughter and her child, at any time, to pass the 
barrier and the frontier. You see? ” 

“ Yes!” 

“ Perhaps he obtained it as his last and utmost precaution against evil, 
yesterday. When is it dated? But no matter; don’t stay to look; put 
it up carefully with mine and your own. Now, observe! I never 
doubted until within this hour or two, that he had, or could have such a 
paper. It is good, until recalled. But it may be soon recalled, and, I 
have reason to think, will be.” 


DARKNESS 


331 


“ They are not m danger? ” 

They are in great danger. They are in danger of denunciation by 
Madame Defarge. I know it from her own lips. I have overheard 
words of that woman’s, to-night, which have presented their danger to 
me in strong colors. I have lost no time, and since then, I have seen 
the spy. He confirms me. He knows that a wood-sawyer, living by 
the prison-wall, is under the control of the Defarges, and has been re- 
hearsed by Madame Defarge as to his having seen her” — he never 
mentioned Lucie’s name — “ making signs and signals to prisoners. It 
is easy to foresee that the pretense will be the common one, a prison 
plot, and that it will involve her life — and perhaps her child’s — and 
perhaps her father’s — for both have been seen with her at that place. 
Don’t look so horrified. You will save them all.” 

“ Heaven grant I may. Carton! But how? ” 

“ I am going to tell you how. It will depend on you, and it could 
depend on no better man. This new denunciation will certainly not take 
place until after to-morrow, probably not until two or three days after- 
wards; more probably a week afterwards. You know it is a capital 
crime, to mourn for, or sympathize with, a victim of the Guillotine. 
She and her father would unquestionably be guilty of this crime, and this 
woman (the inveteracy of whose pursuit cannot be described) would 
wait to add that strength to her case, and make herself doubly sure. 
You follow me? ” 

“ So attentively, and with so much confidence in what you say, that 
for the moment I lose sight,” touching the back of the Doctor’s chair, 
“ even of this distress.” 

“You have money, and can buy the means of traveling to the sea- 
coast as quickly as the journey can be made. Your preparations have 
been completed for some days, to return to England. Early to-morrow 
have your horses ready, so that they may be in starting trim at two 
o’clock in the afternoon.” 

“ It shall be done 1 ” 

His manner was so fervent and inspiring that Mr. Lorry caught the 
flame, and was as quick as youth. 

“ You are a noble heart. Did I say we could depend upon no better 
man? Tell her, to-night, what you know of her danger as involving 
her child and her father. Dwell upon that, for she would lay her own 
fair head beside her husband’s cheerfully.” He faltered for an instant ; 


332 


'A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


then went on as before. “ For the sake of her child and her father, 
press upon her the necessity of leaving Paris, with them and you, at that 
hour. Tell her that it was her husband’s last arrangement. Tell her 
that more depends upon it than she dare believe, or hope. You think 
that her father, even in this sad state, will submit himself to her; do you 
not?” 

“ I am sure of it.” 

“ I thought so. Quietly and steadily have all these arrangements 
made in the court-yard here, even to the taking of your own seat in the 
carriage. The moment I come to you, take me in, and drive away.” 

“ I understand that I wait for you under all circumstances? ” 

“ You have my certificate in your hand with the rest, you know, and 
will reserve my place. Wait for nothing but to have my place occupied, 
and then for England! ” 

“ Why, then,” said Mr. Lorry, grasping his eager but so firm and 
steady hand, “ it does not all depend on one old man, but I shall have a 
young and ardent man at my side.” 

“ By the help of Heaven you shall I Promise me solemnly that noth- 
ing will influence you to alter <-he course on which we now stand pledged 
to one another.” 

“ Nothing, Carton.” 

“ Remember these words to-morrow. Change the course, or delay in 
it — for any reason — and no life can possibly be saved, and many lives 
must inevitably be sacrificed.” 

“ I will remember them. I hope to do my part faithfully.” 

“ And I hope to do mine. Now, good-by.” 

Though he said it with a grave smile of earnestness, and though he 
even put the old man’s hand to his lips, he did not part from him then. 
He helped him so far to arouse the rocking figure before the dying em- 
bers, as to get a cloak and hat put upon it, and to tempt it forth to find 
where the bench and work were hidden that it still moaningly besought 
to have. He walked on the other side of it and protected it to the 
court-yard of the house where the afflicted heart — so happy in the 
memorable time when he had revealed his own desolate heart to it — 
outwatched the awful night. He entered the court-yard and remained 
there for a few moments alone, looking up at the light in the window of 
her room. Before he went away, he breathed a blessing towards it 
and a Farewell. 


CHAPTER XIII 


FIFTY-TWO 

I N the black prison of the Conciergerie, the doomed of the day 
awaited their fate. They were in number as the weeks of the year. 
Fifty-two were to roll that afternoon on the life-tide of the city to the 
boundless everlasting sea. Before their cells were quit of them, new 
occupants were appointed; before their blood ran into the blood spilled 
yesterday, the blood that was to mingle with theirs to-morrow was 
already set apart. 

Two score and twelve were told off. From the farmer-general of 
seventy, whose riches could not buy his life, to the seamstress of twenty, 
whose poverty and obscurity could not save her. Physical diseases, en- 
gendered in the vices and neglects of men, will seize on victims of all 
degrees; and the frightful moral disorder, born of unspeakable suffering, 
intolerable oppression, and heartless indifference, smote equally without 
distinction. 

Charles Darnay, alone in a cell, had sustained himself with no flat- 
tering delusion since he came to it from the Tribunal. In every line of 
the narrative he had heard, he had heard his condemnation. He had 
fully comprehended that no personal influence could possibly save him, 
that he was virtually sentenced by the millions, and that units could avail 
him nothing. 

Nevertheless, it was not easy, with the face of his beloved wife fresh 
before him, to compose his mind to what it must bear. His hold on life 
was strong, and it was very, very hard, to loosen; by gradual efforts and 
degrees unclosed a little here, it clenched the tighter there; and when he 
brought his strength to bear on that hand and it yielded, this was closed 
again. There was a hurry, too, in all his thoughts, a turbulent and 
heated working of his heart, that contended against resignation. If, for 
a moment, he did feel resigned, then his wife and child who had to live 
after him, seemed to protest and to make it a selfish thing. 

But, all this was at first. Before long, the consideration that there 
was no disgrace in the fate he must meet, and that numbers went the 

333 


334 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


same road wrongfully, and trod it firmly every day, sprang up to stimu- 
late him. Next followed the thought that much of the future peace of 
mind enjoyable by the dear ones, depended on his quiet fortitude. So, 
by degrees he calmed into the better state, when he could raise his 
thoughts much higher, and draw comfort down. 

Before it had set in dark on the night of his condemnation, he had 
traveled thus far on his last way. Being allowed to purchase the means 
of writing, and a light, he sat down to write until such time as the prison 
lamps should be extinguished. 

He wrote a long letter to Lucie, showing her that he had known noth- 
ing of her father’s imprisonment, until he had heard of it from herself, 
and that he had been as ignorant as she of his father’s and uncle’s re- 
sponsibility for that misery, until the paper had been read. He had 
already explained to her that his concealment from herself of the name 
he had relinquished, was the one condition — fully intelligible now — 
that her father had attached to their betrothal, and was the one promise 
he had still exacted on the morning of their marriage. He entreated 
her, for her father’s sake, never to seek to know whether her father had 
become oblivious of the existence of the paper, or had had it recalled to 
him (for the moment, or for good), by the story of the Tower, on that 
old Sunday under the dear old plane-tree in the garden. If he had pre- 
served any definite remembrance of it, there could be no doubt that he 
had supposed it destroyed with the Bastille, when he had found no men- 
tion of it among the relics of prisoners which the populace had discov- 
ered there, and which had been described to all the world. He be- 
sought her — though he added that he knew it was needless — to con- 
sole her father, by impressing him through every tender means she could 
think of, with the truth that he had done nothing for which he could 
justly reproach himself, but had uniformly forgotten himself for their 
joint sakes. Next to her preservation of his own last grateful love and 
blessing, and her overcoming of her sorrow, to devote herself to their 
dear child, he adjured her, as they would meet in Heaven, to comfort 
her father. 

To her father himself, he wrote in the same strain; but, he told her 
father that he expressly confided his wife and child to his care. And he 
told him this, very strongly, with the hope of rousing him from any 
despondency or dangerous retrospect towards which he foresaw he 
might be tending. 


The clocks struck the riumbers he zvould never hear again 


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©C1K139634 ly 



OtT 24 1921 




FIFTY^TWO 


335 

To Mr. Lorry, he commended them all, and explained his worldly 
affairs. That done, with many added sentences of grateful friendship 
and warm attachment, all was done. He never thought of Carton. 
His mind was so full of the others, that he never once thought of him. 

He had time to finish these letters before the lights were put out. 
When he lay down on his straw bed, he thought he had done with this 
world. 

But, it beckoned him back in his sleep, and showed itself in shining 
forms. Free and happy, back in the old house in Soho (though it had 
nothing in it like the real house), unaccountably released and light of 
heart, he was with Lucie again, and she told him it was all a dream, and 
he had never gone away. A pause of forgetfulness, and then he had 
even suffered, and had come back to her, dead and at peace, and yet 
there was no difference in him. Another pause of oblivion, and he 
awoke in the somber morning, unconscious where he was or what hap- 
pened, until it flashed upon his mind, “ this is the day of my death! ” 

Thus, had he come through the hours, to the day when the fifty-two 
heads were to fall. And now, while he was composed, and hoped that 
he could meet the end with quiet heroism, a new action began in his 
waking thoughts, which was very difficult to master. 

He had never seen the instrument that was to terminate his life. 
How high it was from the ground, how many steps it had, where he 
would be stood, how he would be touched, whether the touching hands 
would be dyed red, which way his face would be turned, whether he 
would be the first, or might be the last. These and many similar ques- 
tions, in no wise directed by his will, obtruded themselves over and over 
again, countless times. Neither were they connected with fear; he was 
conscious of no fear. Rather, they originated in a strange besetting 
desire to know what to do when the time came; a desire gigantically dis- 
proportionate to the few swift moments to which it referred; a wonder- 
ing that was more like the wondering of some other spirit within his, 
than his own. 

The hours went on as he walked to and fro, and the clocks struck the 
numbers he would never hear again. Nine gone forever, ten gone for- 
ever, eleven gone forever; twelve coming on to pass away. After a 
hard contest with that eccentric action of thought which had last per- 
plexed him, he had got the better of it. He walked up and down, softly 
repeating their names to himself. The worst of the strife was over. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


336 

He could walk up and down, free from distracting fancies, praying for 
himself and for them. 

Twelve gone forever. 

He had been apprised that the final hour was Three, and he knew he 
would be summoned some time earlier, inasmuch as the tumbrils jolted 
heavily and slowly through the streets. Therefore, he resolved to keep 
Two before his mind, as the hour, and so to strengthen himself in the 
interval that he might be able, after that time, to strengthen others. 

Walking regularly to and fro with his arms folded on his breast, a 
very different man from the prisoner who had walked to and fro at La 
Force, he heard One struck away from him, without surprise. The 
hour had measured like most other hours. Devoutly thankful to 
Heaven for his recovered self-possession, he thought, “ There is but 
another now,” and turned to walk again. 

Footsteps in the stone passage outside the door. He stopped. 

The key was put in the lock, and turned. Before the door was 
opened, or as it opened, a man said in a low voice, in English: “ He 
has never seen me here; I have kept out of his way. Go you in alone; 
I wait near. Lose no time ! ” 

The door was quickly opened and closed, and there stood before him 
face to face, quiet, intent upon him, with the light of a smile on his fea- 
tures, and a cautionary finger on his lip, Sydney Carton. 

There was something so bright and remarkable in his look, that, for 
the first moment, the prisoner misdoubted him to be an apparition of 
his own imagination. But, he spoke, and it was his voice; he took the 
prisoner’s hand, and it was his real grasp. 

“ Of all the people upon earth, you least expected to see me? ” he 
said. 

“ I could not believe it to be you. I can scarcely believe it now. You 
are not ” — the apprehension came suddenly into his mind — “ a pris- 
oner ? ” 

“ No. I am accidentally possessed of a power over one of the keepers 
here, and in virtue of it I stand before you. I come from her — your 
wife, dear Darnay.” 

The prisoner wrung his hand. 

“ I bring you a request from her.” 

“What is it?” 

“ A most earnest, pressing, and emphatic entreaty, addressed to you 


FIFTY-TWO 


337 

in the most pathetic tones of the voice so dear to you, that you well 
remember.” 

The prisoner turned his face partly aside. 

You have no time to ask me why I bring it, or what it means ; I have 
no time to tell you. You must comply with it — take off those boots 
you wear, and draw on these of mine.” 

There was a chair against the wall of the cell, behind the prisoner. 
Carton, pressing forward, had already, with the speed of lightning, got 
him down into it, and stood over him, barefoot. 

“ Draw on these boots of mine. Put your hands to them; put your 
will to them. Quick! ” 

“ Carton, there is no escaping from this place; it never can be done. 
You will only die with me. It is madness.” 

“ It would be madness if I asked you to escape; but do I? When I 
ask you to pass out at that door, tell me it is madness and remain here. 
Change that cravat for this of mine. That coat for this of mine. 
While you do it, let me take this ribbon from your hair, and shake out 
your hair like this of mine 1 ” 

With wonderful quickness, and with a strength both of will and action, 
that appeared quite supernatural, he forced all these changes upon him. 
The prisoner was like a young child in his hands. 

“Carton! Dear Carton! It is madness. It cannot be accom- 
plished, it never can be done, it has been attempted, and has always 
failed. I implore you not to add your death to the bitterness of mine.” 

“ Do I ask you, my dear Darnay, to pass the door? When I ask 
that, refuse. There are pen and ink and paper on this table. Is your 
hand steady enough to write? ” 

“ It was when you came in.” 

“ Steady it again, and write what I shall dictate. Quick, friend, 
quick ! ” 

Pressing his hand to his bewildered head, Darnay sat down at the 
table. Carton, with his right hand in his breast, stood close beside him. 

“ Write exactly as I speak.” 

“ To whom do I address it? ” 

“ To no one.” Carton still had his hand in his breast. 

“ Do I date it?” 

“ No.” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


338 

The prisoner looked up, at each question. Carton, standing over him 
with his hand in his breast, looked down. 

“ ‘ If you remember,’ ” said Carton, dictating, “ ‘ the words that 
passed between us, long ago, you will readily comprehend this when you 
see it. You do remember them, I know. It is not in your nature to 
forget them.’ ” 

He was drawing his hand from his breast; the prisoner chancing to 
look up in his hurried wonder as he wrote, the hand stopped, closing 
upon something. 

“ Have you written ‘ forget them ’? ” Carton asked. 

“ I have. Is that a weapon in your hand? ” 

“ No; I am not armed.” 

' “ What is it in your hand? ” 

“ You shall know directly. Write on. There are but few words 
more.” He directed again. “ ‘ I am thankful that the time has come, 
when I can prove them. That I do so is no subject for regret or grief.’ ” 
As he said these words with his eyes fixed on the writer, his hand slowly 
and softly moved down close to the writer’s face. 

The pen dropped from Darnay’s fingers on the table, and he looked 
about him vacantly. 

“ What vapor is that? ” he asked. 

“Vapor?” 

“ Something that crossed me ? ” 

“ I am conscious of nothing; there can be nothing here. Take up 
the pen and finish. Hurry, hurry! ” 

As if his memory were impaired, or his faculties disordered, the pris- 
oner made an effort to rally his attention. As he looked at Carton with 
clouded eyes and with an altered manner of breathing. Carton — his 
hand again in his breast — looked steadily at him. 

“ Hurry, hurry! ” 

The prisoner bent over the paper, once more. 

“ ‘ If it had been otherwise ’ ” ; Carton’s hand was again watchfully 
and softly stealing down; “ ‘ I never should have used the longer oppor- 
tunity. If it had been otherwise ’ ” ; the hand was at the prisoner’s 
face; “ ‘ I should but have had so much the more to answer for. If it 
had been otherwise — ’ ” Carton looked at the pen and saw it was 
trailing off into unintelligible signs. 

Carton’s hand moved back to his breast no more. The prisoner 


FIFTY-TWO 


339 

Sprang up with a reproachful look, but Carton’s hand was close and firm 
at his nostrils, and Carton’s left arm caught him round the waist. For 
a few seconds he faintly struggled with the man who had come to lay 
down his life for him; but, within a minute or so, he was stretched 
insensible on the ground. 

Quickly, but with hands as true to the purpose as his heart was. 
Carton dressed himself in the clothes the prisoner had laid aside, combed 
back his hair, and tied it with the ribbon the prisoner had worn. Then, 
he softly called, “Enter there! Come in!” and the Spy presented 
himself. 

“ You see? ” said Carton, looking up, as he kneeled on one knee be- 
side the insensible figure, putting the paper in the breast: “is your 
hazard very great? ” 

“ Mr. Carton,” the Spy answered, with a timid snap of his fingers, 
“ my hazard is not that, in the thick of business here, if you are true to 
the whole of your bargain.” 

“ Don’t fear me. I will be true to the death.” 

“ You must be, Mr. Carton, if the tale of fifty-two is to be right. 
Being made right by you in that dress, I shall have no fear.” 

“ Have no fear ! I shall soon be out of the way of harming you, 
and the rest will soon be far from here, please God! Now, get assist- 
ance and take me to the coach.” 

“ You? ” said the Spy nervously. 

“ Him, man, with whom I have exchanged. You go out at the gate 
by which you brought me in? ” 

“ Of course.” 

“ I was weak and faint when you brought me in, and I am fainter 
now you take me out. The parting interview has overpowered me. 
Such a thing has happened here, often, and too often. Your life is in 
your own hands. Quick ! Call assistance ! ” 

“ You swear not to betray me? ” said the trembling Spy, as he paused 
for a last moment. 

“ Man, man! ” returned Carton, stamping his foot; “have I sworn 
by no solemn vow already, to go through with this, that you waste the 
precious moments now? Take him yourself to the court-yard you know 
of, place him yourself in the carriage, show him yourself to Mr. Lorry, 
tell him yourself to give him no restorative but air, and to remember 
my words of last night, and his promise of last night, and drive away ! ” 


340 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


The Spy withdrew, and Carton seated himself at the table, resting his 
forehead on his hands. The Spy returned immediately, with two men. 

“How, then?” said one of them, contemplating the fallen figure. 
“ So afflicted to find that his friend has drawn a prize in the lottery of 
Sainte Guillotine ? ” 

“ A good patriot,” said the other, “ could hardly have been more 
afflicted if the Aristocrat had drawn a blank.” 

They raised the unconscious figure, placed it on a litter they had 
brought to the door, and bent to carry it away. 

“ The time is short, Evremonde,” said the Spy, in a warning voice. 

“ I know it well,” answered Carton. “ Be careful of my friend, I 
entreat you, and leave me.” 

“ Come, then, my children,” said Barsad. “ Lift him, and come 
away I ” 

The door closed, and Carton was left alone. Straining his powers of 
listening to the utmost, he listened for any sound that might denote sus- 
picion or alarm. There was none. Keys turned, doors clashed, foot- 
steps passed along distant passages. No cry was raised, or hurry made, 
that seemed unusual. Breathing more freely in a little while, he sat 
down at the table, and listened again until the clock struck Two. 

Sounds that he was not afraid of, for he divined their meaning, then 
began to be audible. Several doors were opened in succession, and 
finally his own. A gaoler, with a list in his hand, looked in, merely say- 
ing, “ Follow me, Evremonde ! ” and he followed into a large dark room, 
at a distance. It was a dark winter day, and what with the shadows 
within, and what with the shadows without, he could but dimly discern 
the others who were brought there to have their arms bound. Some 
were standing; some seated. Some were lamenting, and in restless mo- 
tion; but, these were few. The great majority were silent and still, 
looking fixedly at the ground. 

As he stood by the wall in a dim corner, while some of the fifty-two 
were brought in after him, one man stopped in passing, to embrace him, 
as having a knowledge of him. It thrilled him with a great dread of 
discovery; but the man went on. A very few moments after that, a 
young woman, with a slight girlish form, a sweet spare face in which 
there was no vestige of color, and large widely opened patient eyes, rose 
from the seat where he had observed her sitting, and came to speak to 
him. 


FIFTY-TWO 


341 


“ Citizen Evremonde,” she said, touching him with her cold hand. 
“ I am a poor little seamstress, who was with you in La Force.” 

He murmured for answer: “True. I forget what you were ac- 
cused of? ” 

“ Plots. Though the just Heaven knows I am Innocent of any. Is 
It likely ? Who would think of plotting with a poor little weak creature 
like me? ” 

The forlorn smile with which she said it, so touched him, that tears 
started from his eyes. 

“ I am not afraid to die. Citizen Evremonde, but I have done nothing. 
I am not unwilling to die, if the Republic which is to do so much good to 
us poor, will profit by my death; but I do not know how that can be. 
Citizen Evremonde. Such a poor weak little creature ! ” 

As the last thing on earth that his heart was to warm and soften to, 
it warmed and softened to this pitiable girl. 

“ I heard you were released. Citizen Evremonde. I hoped it was 
true?” 

“ It was. But, I was again taken and condemned.” 

“ If I may ride with you. Citizen Evremonde, will you let me hold 
your hand? I am not afraid, but I am little and weak, and it will give 
me more courage.” 

As the patient eyes were lifted to his face, he saw a sudden doubt in 
them, and then astonishment. He pressed the work-worn, hunger-worn 
young fingers, and touched his lips. 

“ Are you dying for him? ” she whispered. 

“ And his wife and child. Hush! Yes.” 

“ O you will let me hold your brave hand, stranger?” 

“ Hush! Yes, my poor sister; to the last.” 

The same shadows that are falling on the prison, are falling, in that 
same hour of the early afternoon, on the Barrier with the crowd about 
it, when a coach going out of Paris drives up to be examined. 

“ Who goes here ? Whom have we within ? Papers ! ” 

The papers are handed out, and read. 

“Alexandre Manette. Physician. French. Which is he?”^ 

This is he; this helpless. Inarticulately murmuring, wandering old 
man pointed out. 


342 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“Apparently the Citizen-Doctor is not in his right mind? The 
Revolution-fever will have been too much for him? ” 

Greatly too much for him. 

“Hah! Many suffer with it. Lucie. His daughter. French. 
Which is she?” 

This is she. 

“ Apparently it must be. Lucie, the wife of Evremonde ; is it not? ” 

It is. 

“ Hah 1 Evremonde has an assignation elsewhere. Lucie, her child. 
English. This is she? ” 

She and no other. 

“ Kiss me, child of Evremonde. Now, thou hast kissed a good Re- 
publican; something new in thy family; remember it! Sydney Carton. 
Advocate. English. Which is he?” 

He lies here, in this corner of the carriage. He, too, is pointed out. 

“ Apparently the English advocate is in a swoon? ” 

It is hoped he will recover in the fresher air. It is represented that 
he is not in strong health, and has separated sadly from a friend who is 
under the displeasure of the Republic. 

“ Is that all? It is not a great deal, that! Many are under the dis- 
pleasure of the Republic, and must look out at the little window. Jarvis 
Lorry. Banker. English. Which is he?” 

“ I am he. Necessarily, being the last.” 

It is Jarvis Lorry who has replied to all the previous questions. It is 
Jarvis Lorry who has alighted and stands with his hand on the coach 
door, replying to a group of officials. They leisurely walk round the 
carriage and leisurely mount the box, to look at what little luggage it 
carries on the roof; the country-people hanging about, press nearer to 
the coach doors and greedily stare in; a little child, carried by its mother, 
has its short arm held out for it, that it may touch the wife of an aris- 
tocrat who has gone to the Guillotine. 

“ Behold your papers, Jarvis Lorry, countersigned.” 

“ One can depart, citizen? ” 

“ One can depart. Forward, my postilions! A good journey! ” 

“ I salute you, citizens.” And the first danger passed! 

These are again the words of Jarvis Lorry, as he clasps his hands, and 
looks upward. There is terror in the carriage, there is weeping, there is 
the heavy breathing of the insensible traveler. 


FIFTY-TWO 


343 


Are^we not going too slowly? Can they not be induced to go 
faster? ” asks Lucie, clinging to the old man. 

It would seem like flight, my darling. I must not urge them too 
much; it would arouse suspicion.” 

“ Look back, look back, and see if we are pursued ! ” 

The road is clear, my dearest. ( So far, we are not pursued.” 

Houses in twos and threes pass by us, solitary farms, ruinous build- 
ings, dye-works, tanneries, and the like, open country, avenues of leafless 
trees. The hard uneven pavement is under us, the soft deep mud is on 
either side. Sometimes, we strike into the skirting mud, to avoid the 
stones that clatter us and shake us; sometimes we stick in ruts and 
sloughs there. The agony of our impatience is then so great, that in 
our wild alarm and hurry we are for getting out and running — 
hiding — doing anything but stopping. 

Out of the open country, in again among ruinous buildings, solitary 
farms, dye-works, tanneries, and the like, cottages in twos and threes, 
avenues of leafless trees. Have these men deceived us, and taken us 
back by another road? Is not this the same place twice over? Thank 
Heaven, no. A village. Look back, look back and see if we are 
pursued ! Hush ! the posting-house. 

Leisurely, our four horses are taken out; leisurely, the coach stands 
in the little street, bereft of horses, and with no likelihood upon it of 
ever moving again ; leisurely, the new horses come into visible existence, 
one by one ; leisurely, the new postilions follow, sucking and plaiting the 
lashes of their whips; leisurely, the old postilions count their money, 
make wrong additions, and arrive at dissatisfied results. All the time, 
our over-fraught hearts are beating at a rate that would far outstrip 
the fastest gallop of the fastest horses ever foaled. 

At length the new postilions are in their saddles, and the old are left 
behind. We are through the village, up the hill, and down the hill, and 
on the low watery grounds. Suddenly, the postilions exchange speech 
with animated gesticulation, and the horses are pulled up, almost on 
their haunches. We are pursued? 

“ Ho ! within the carriage there. Speak then I ” 

“ What is it? ” asks Mr. Lorry, looking out at window. 

“ How many did they say? ” 

“ I do not understand you.” 


344 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ — At the last post. How many to the Guillotine to-day? ” 

“ Fifty-two.” 

“ I said so ! A brave number ! My fellow-citizen here would have 
it forty-two; ten more heads are worth having. The Guillotine goes 
handsomely. I love it. Hi forward. Whoop ! ” 

The night comes on dark. He moves more ; he is beginning to revive, 
and to speak intelligibly; he thinks they are still together; he asks him, 
by his name, what he has in his hand. O pity us, kind Heaven, and help 
us ! Look out, look out, and see if we are pursued. 

The wind is rushing after us, and the clouds are flying after us, and 
the moon is plunging after us, and the whole wild night is in pursuit of 
us ; but, so far, we are pursued by nothing else. 


CHAPTER XIV 
THE KNITTING DONE 

I N that same juncture of time when the Fifty-Two awaited their fate, 
Madame Defarge held darkly ominous council with The Vengeance 
and Jacques Three of the R-evolutionary Jury. Not in the wine-shop did 
Madame Defarge confer with these ministers, but in the shed of the 
wood-sawyer, erst a mender of roads. The sawyer himself did not 
participate in the conference, but abided at a little distance, like an outer 
satellite who was not to speak until required, or to offer an opinion until 
invited. 

“ But our Defarge,” said Jacques Three, “ is undoubtedly a good Re- 
publican? Eh?” 

“ There is no better,” the voluble Vengeance protested in her shrill 
notes, “ in France.” 

“ Peace, little Vengeance,” said Madame Defarge, laying her hand 
with a slight frown on her lieutenant’s lips, “ hear me speak. My hus- 
band, fellow-citizen, is a good Republican and a bold man; he has de- 
served well of the Republic, and possesses its confidence. But my hus- 
band has his weaknesses, and he is so weak as to relent towards this 
Doctor.” 

“ It is a great pity,” croaked Jacques Three, dubiously shaking his 
head, with his cruel fingers at his hungry mouth ; “ it is not quite like a 
good citizen; it is a thing to regret.” 

“ See you,” said Madame, “ I care nothing for this Doctor, I. He 
may wear his head or lose it, for any interest I have in him; it is all one 
to me. But, the Evremonde people are to be exterminated, and the wife 
and child must follow the husband and father.” 

“ She has a fine head for it,” croaked Jacques Three. “ I have seen 
blue eyes and golden hair there, and they looked charming when Samson 
held them up.” Ogre that he was, he spoke like an epicure. 

Madame Defarge cast down her eyes, and reflected a little. 

“ The child, also,” observed Jacques Three, with a meditative enjoy- 

345 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


346 

merit of his words, “ has golden hair and blue eyes. And we seldom 
have a child there. It is a pretty sight ! ” 

“ In a word,” said Madame Defarge, coming out of her short ab- 
straction, “ I cannot trust my husband in this matter. Not only do I 
feel, since last night, that I dare not confide to him the details of my 
projects; but also I feel that if I delay, there is danger of his giving 
warning, and then they might escape.” 

“ That must never be,” croaked Jacques Three; “ no one must escape. 
We have not half enough as it is. We ought to have six score a day.” 

“ In a word,” Madame Defarge went on, “ my husband has not my 
reason for pursuing this family to annihilation, and I have not his reason 
for regarding this Doctor with any sensibility. I must act for myself, 
therefore. Come hither, little citizen.” 

The wood-sawyer, who held her in the respect, and himself in the 
submission, of mortal fear, advanced with his hand to his red cap. 

“Touching those signals, little citizen,” said Madame Defarge, 
sternly, “ that she made to the prisoners; you are ready to bear witness 
to them this very day? ” 

“ Aye, aye, why not ! ” cried the sawyer. “ Every day, in all 
weathers, from two to four, always signaling, sometimes with the little 
one, sometimes without. I know what I know. I have seen with my 
eyes.” 

He made all manner of gestures while he spoke, as if in incidental imi- 
tation of some few of the great diversity of signals that he had never 
seen. 

“ Clearly plots,” said Jacques Three. “ Transparently I ” 

“ There is no doubt of the Jury? ” inquired Madame Defarge, letting 
her eyes turn to him with a gloomy smile. 

“ Rely upon the patriotic Jury, dear citizeness. I answer for my 
fellow-jurymen.” 

“ Now, let me see,” said Madame Defarge, pondering again. “ Yet 
once more ! Can I spare this Doctor to my husband? I have no feel- 
ing either way. Can I spare him? ” 

“ He would count as one head,” observed Jacques Three, in a low 
voice. “We really have not heads enough ; it would be a pity, I think.” 

“ He was signaling with her when I saw her,” argued Madame De- 
farge; “ I cannot speak of one without the other; and I must not be 


THE KNITTING DONE 


347 

silent, and trust the case wholly to him, this little citizen here. For, I 
am not a bad witness.” 

The Vengeance and Jacques Three vied with each other in their fer- 
vent protestations that she was the most admirable and marvelous of 
witnesses. The little citizen, not to be outdone, declared her to be a 
celestial witness. 

“ He must take his chance,” said Madame Defarge. “ No, I cannot 
spare him ! You are engaged at three o’clock; you are going to see the 
batch of to-day executed. — You? ” 

The question was addressed to the wood-sawyer, who hurriedly re- 
plied in the affirmative; seizing the occasion to add that he was the most 
ardent of Republicans, and that he would be in effect the most desolate 
of Republicans, if anything prevented him from enjoying the pleasure of 
smoking his afternoon pipe in the contemplation of the droll national 
barber. He was so very demonstrative herein, that he might have been 
suspected (perhaps was, by the dark eyes that looked contemptuously at 
him out of Madame Defarge’s head) of having his small individual 
fears for his own personal safety, every hour in the day. 

“ I,” said madame, “ am equally engaged at the same place. After 
it is over — say at eight to-night — come you to me, in Saint Antoine, 
and we will give information against these people at my Section.” 

The wood-sawyer said he would be proud and flattered to attend the 
citizeness. The citizeness looking at him, he became embarrassed, 
evaded her glance as a small dog would have done, retreated among his 
wood, and hid his confusion over the handle of his saw. 

Madame Defarge beckoned the Juryman and The Vengeance a little 
nearer to the door, and there expounded her further views to them thus : 

“ She will now be at home, awaiting the moment of his death. She 
will be mourning and grieving. She will be in a state of mind to im- 
peach the justice of the Republic. She will be full of sympathy with its 
enemies. I will go to her.” 

“ What an admirable woman; what an adorable woman! ” exclaimed 
Jacques Three, rapturously. “Ah, my cherished!” cried The Ven- 
geance ; and embraced her. 

“ Take you my knitting,” said Madame Defarge, placing it in her 
lieutenant’s hands, “ and have it ready for me in my usual seat. Keep 
me my usual chair. Go you there, straight, for there will probably be 
a greater concourse than usual, to-day.” 


348 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ I willingly obey the orders of my Chief,” said The Vengeance with 
alacrity, and kissing her cheek. “ You will not be late? ” 

“ I shall be there before the commencement.” 

“ And before the tumbrils arrive. Be sure you are there, my soul,” 
said The Vengeance, calling after her, for she had already turned into 
the street, “ before the tumbrils arrive! ” 

Madame Defarge slightly waved her hand, to imply that she heard, 
and might be relied upon to arrive in good time, and so went through 
the mud, and round the corner of the prison-wall. The Vengeance and 
the Juryman, looking after her as she walked away, were highly appre- 
ciative of her fine figure, and her superb moral endowments. 

There were many women at that time, upon whom the time laid a 
dreadfully disfiguring hand; but, there was not one among them more 
to be dreaded than this ruthless woman, now taking her way along the 
streets. Of a strong and fearless character, of shrewd sense and readi- 
ness, of great determination, of that kind of beauty which not only seems 
to impart to its possessor firmness and animosity, but to strike into others 
an instinctive recognition of those qualities; the troubled time would 
have heaved her up, under any circumstances. But, imbued from her 
childhood with a brooding sense of wrong, and an inveterate hatred of 
a class, opportunity had developed her into a tigress. She was abso- 
lutely without pity. If she had ever had the virtue in her, it had quite 
gone out of her. 

It was nothing to her, that an innocent man was to die for the sins of 
his forefathers; she saw, not him, but them. It was nothing to her, that 
his wife was to be made a widow and his daughter an orphan; that was 
insufficient punishment, because they were her natural enemies and her 
prey, and as such had no right to live. To appeal to her, was made 
hopeless by her having no sense of pity, even for herself. If she had 
been laid low in the streets, in any of the many encounters in which she 
had engaged, she would not have pitied herself; nor, if she had been 
ordered to the ax to-morrow, would she have gone to it with any softer 
feeling than a fierce desire to change places with the man who sent her 
there. 

Such a heart Madame Defarge carried under her rough robe. Care- 
lessly worn, it was a becoming robe enough, in a certain weird way, and 
her dark hair looked rich under her coarse red cap. Lying hidden in 
her bosom, was a loaded pistol. Lying hidden at her waist, was a 


THE KNITTING DONE 


349 

sharpened dagger. Thus accoutered, and walking with the confident 
tread of such a character, and with the supple freedom of a woman who 
had habitually walked in her girlhood, hare-foot and bare-legged, on the 
brown sea-sand, Madame Defarge took her way along the streets. 

Now, when the journey of the traveling coach, at that very moment 
waiting for the completion of its load, had been planned out last night, 
the difficulty of taking Miss Pross in it had much engaged Mr. Lorry’s 
attention. It was not merely desirable to avoid overloading the coach, 
but it was of the highest importance that the time occupied in examining 
it and its passengers, should be reduced to the utmost; since their escape 
might depend on the saving of only a few seconds here and there. 
Finally, he had proposed, after anxious consideration, that Miss Pross 
and Jerry, who were at liberty to leave the city, should leave it at three 
o’clock in the lightest-wheeled conveyance known to that period. Unen- 
cumbered with luggage, they would soon overtake the coach, and, passing 
it and preceding it on the road, would order its horses in advance, and 
greatly facilitate its progress during the precious hours of the night, 
when delay was the most to be dreaded. 

Seeing in this arrangement the hope of rendering real service in that 
pressing emergency. Miss Pross hailed it with joy. She and Jerry had 
beheld the coach start, had known who it was that Solomon brought, had 
passed some ten minutes in tortures of suspense, and were now concluding 
their arrangements to follow the coach, even as Madame Defarge, 
taking her way through the streets, now drew nearer and nearer to the 
else-deserted lodging in which they held their consultation. 

Now what do you think, Mr. Cruncher,” said Miss Pross, whose 
agitation was so great that she could hardly speak, or stand, or move, or 
live; “what do you think of our not starting from this court-yard? 
Another carriage having already gone from here to-day, it might 
awaken suspicion.” 

“ My opinion, miss,” returned Mr. Cruncher, “ Is as you’re right. 
Likewise wot I’ll stand by you, right or wrong.” 

“ I am so distracted with fear and hope for our precious creatures,” 
said Miss Pross, wildly crying, “ that I am incapable of forming any 
plan. Are you capable of forming any plan, my dear good Mr. 
Cruncher? ” 

“ Respectin’ a future spear o’ life, miss,” returned Mr. Cruncher, “ I 
hope so. Respectin’ any present use o’ this here blessed old head o’ 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


350 

mine, I think not. Would you do me the favor, miss, to take notice o’ 
two promises and wows wot it is my wishes fur to record in this here 
crisis? ” 

“ Oh, for gracious sake ! ” cried Miss Pross, still wildly crying, 
“ record them at once, and get them out of the way, like an excellent 
man.” 

“ First,” said Mr. Cruncher, who was all in a tremble, and who spoke 
with an ashy and solemn visage, “ them poor things well out o’ this, 
never no more will I do it, never no more ! ” 

“ I am quite sure, Mr. Cruncher,” returned Miss Pross, “ that you 
never will do it again, whatever it is, and I beg you not to think it 
necessary to mention more particularly what it is.” 

“ No, miss,” returned Jerry, ‘‘ it shall not be named to you. Second: 
them poor things well out o’ this, and never no more will I interfere with 
Mrs. Cruncher’s flopping, never no more ! ” 

“ Whatever housekeeping arrangement that may be,” said Miss 
Pross, striving to dry her eyes and compose herself, I have no doubt it 
is best that Mrs. Cruncher should have it entirely under her own super- 
intendence. — O my poor darlings ! ” 

“ I go so far as to say, miss, morehover,” proceeded Mr. Cruncher, 
with a most alarming tendency to hold forth as from a pulpit — “ and 
let my words be took down and took to Mrs. Cruncher through your- 
self — that wot my opinions respectin’ flopping has undergone a chance, 
and that wot I only hope with all my heart as Mrs. Cruncher may be a 
flopping at the present time.” 

“ There, there, there! I hope she is, my dear man,” cried the dis- 
tracted Miss Pross, “ and I hope she finds it answering her expecta- 
tions.” 

“ Forbid it,” proceeded Mr. Cruncher, with additional solemnity, 
additional slowness, and additional tendency to hold forth and hold 
out, “ as anything wot I have ever said or done should be wisited on my 
earnest wishes for them poor creaturs now 1 Forbid it as we shouldn’t 
all flop (if it was anyways conwenient) to get ’em out o’ this here 
dismal risk! Forbid it, miss! Wot I say, for — bid it! ” This was 
Mr. Cruncher’s conclusion after a protracted but vain endeavor to find 
a better one. 

And still Madame Defarge, pursuing her way along the streets, came 
nearer and nearer. 


35 1 


THE KNITTING DONE 

If we ever get back to our native land,’’ said Miss Pross, you 
may rely upon my telling Mrs. Cruncher as much as I may be able 
to remember and understand of what you have so impressively said; and 
at all events you may be sure that I shall bear witness to your being thor- 
oughly in earnest at this dreadful time. Now, pray let us think! My 
esteemed Mr. Cruncher, let us think 1 ” 

Still, Madame Defarge, pursuing her way along the streets, came 
nearer and nearer. 

“ If you were to go before,” said Miss Pross, “ and stop the vehicle 
and horses from coming here, and were to wait somewhere for me; 
wouldn’t that be best? ” 

Mr. Cruncher thought it might be best. 

“Where could you wait for me?” asked Miss Pross. 

Mr. Cruncher was so bewildered that he could think of no locality 
but Temple Bar. Alas! Temple Bar was hundreds of miles away, 
and Madame Defarge was drawing very near indeed. 

“ By the cathedral door,” said Miss Pross. “ Would it be much out 
of the way, to take me in, near the great cathedral door between the 
two towers? ” 

“ No, miss,” answered Mr. Cruncher. 

“ Then, like the best of men,” said Miss Pross, “ go to the- posting- 
house straight, and make that change.” 

“ I am doubtful,” said Mr. Cruncher, hesitating and shaking his head, 
“ about leaving of you, you see. We don’t know what may happen.” 

“ Heaven knows we don’t,” returned Miss Pross, “ but have no fear 
for me. Take me in at the cathedral, at three o’clock, or as near it 
as you can, and I am sure it will be better than our going from here. 
I feel certain of it. There! Bless you, Mr. Cruncher! Think — 
not of me, but of the lives that may depend upon both of us ! ” 

This exordium, and Miss Pross’s two hands in quite agonized entreaty 
clasping his, decided Mr. Cruncher. With an encouraging nod or two, 
he immediately went out to alter the arrangements, and left her by 
herself to follow as she had proposed. 

The having originated a precaution which was already in course 
of execution, was a great relief to Miss Pross. The necessity of com- 
posing her appearance so that it should attract no special notice in the 
streets, was another relief. She looked at her watch, and it was twenty 
minutes past two. She had no time to lose, but must get ready at once. 


352 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Afraid, in her extreme perturbation, of the loneliness of the deserted 
rooms, and of half-imagined faces peeping from behind every open door 
in them, Miss Pross got a basin of cold water and began laving her 
eyes, which were swollen and red. Haunted by her feverish appre- 
hensions, she could not bear to have her sight obscured for a minute at 
a time by the dripping water, but constantly paused and looked round 
to see that there was no one watching her. In one of those pauses she 
recoiled and cried out, for she saw a figure standing in the room. 

The basin fell to the ground broken, and the water flowed to the 
feet of Madame Defarge. By strange stern ways, and through much 
staining blood, those feet had come to meet that water. 

Madame Defarge looked coldly at her, and said, “ The wife of 
Evremonde; where is she? ” 

It flashed upon Miss Pross’s mind that the doors were all standing 
open, and would suggest the flight. Her first act was to shut them. 
There were four in the room, and she shut them all. She then placed 
herself before the door of the chamber which Lucie had occupied. 

Madame Defarge’s dark eyes followed her through this rapid move- 
ment, and rested on her when it was finished. Miss Pross had nothing 
beautiful about her; years had not tamed the wildness, or softened the 
grimness, of her appearance; but, she too was a determined woman 
in her different way, and she measured Madame Defarge with her eye, 
every inch. 

“ You might, from your appearance, be the wife of Lucifer,” said 
Miss Pross, in her breathing. “ Nevertheless, you shall not get the 
better of me. I am an Englishwoman.” 

Madame Defarge looked at her scornfully, but still with something 
of Miss Pross’s own perception that they two were at bay. She saw 
a tight, hard, wiry woman before her, as Mr. Lorry had seen in the 
same figure a woman with a strong hand, in the years gone by. She 
knew full well that Miss Pross was the family’s devoted friend; Miss 
Pross knew full well that Madame Defarge was the family’s malevolent 
enemy. 

“ On my way yonder,” said Madame Defarge, with a slight move- 
ment of her hand towards the fatal spot, “ where they reserve my chair 
and my knitting for me, I am come to make my compliments to her in 
passing. I wish to see her.” 


THE KNITTING DONE 


353 


I know that your intentions are evil,” said Miss Pross, “ and you 
may depend upon it, Pll hold my own against them.” 

Each spoke in her own language ; neither understood the other’s 
words; both were very watchful, and intent to deduce from look and 
manner, what the unintelligible words meant. ' 

It will do her no good to keep herself concealed from me at this 
moment,” said Madame Defarge. “ Good patriots will know what 
that means. Let me see her. Go tell her that I wish to see her. Do 
you hear? ” 

“ If those eyes of yours were bed-winches,” returned Miss Pross, 
“ and I was an English four-poster, they shouldn’t loose a splinter of 
me. No, you wicked foreign woman; I am your match.” 

Madame Defarge was not likely to follow these idiomatic remarks 
in detail; but, she so far understood them as to perceive that she was 
set at naught. 

“Woman-imbecile and pig-like!” said Madame Defarge, frowning. 
“ I take no answer from you. I demand to see her. Either tell her 
that I demand to see her, or stand out of the way of the door and 
let me go to her 1 ” This, with an angry explanatory wave of her 
right arm. 

“ I little thought,” said Miss Pross, “ that I should ever want to under- 
stand your nonsensical language ; but I would give all I have, except the 
clothes I wear, to know whether you suspect the truth, or any part of it.” 

Neither of them for a single moment released the other’s eyes. 
Madame Defarge had not moved from the spot where she stood when 
Miss Pross first became aware of her; but, she now advanced one step. 

“ I am a Briton,” said Miss Pross, “ I am desperate. I don’t care 
an English Twopence for myself. I know that the longer I keep 
you here, the greater hope there is for my Ladybird. I’ll not leave a 
handful of that dark hair upon your head, if you lay a finger on me 1 ” 

Thus Miss Pross, with a shake of her head and a flash of her eyes 
between every rapid sentence, and every rapid sentence a whole breath. 
Thus Miss Pross, who had never struck a blow in her life. 

But, her courage was of that emotional nature that it brought the 
irrepressible tears into her eyes. This was a courage that Madame 
Defarge so little comprehended as to mistake for weakness. “ Ha, ha 1 ’ 
she laughed, “you poor wretch! What are you worth! I address 


354 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


myself to that Doctor.” Then she raised her voice and called out, 
“ Citizen Doctor ! Wife of Evremonde ! Child of Evremonde ! Any 
person but this miserable fool, answer the Citizeness Defarge I ” 

Perhaps the following silence, perhaps some latent disclosure in the 
expression of Miss Pross’s face, perhaps a sudden misgiving apart from 
either suggestion, whispered to Madame Defarge that they were gone. 
Three of the doors she opened swiftly, and looked in. 

“ Those rooms are all in disorder, there has been hurried packing, 
there are odds and ends upon the ground. There is no one in that 
room behind you 1 Let me look.” 

“ Never I ” said Miss Pross, who understood the request as per- 
fectly as Madame Defarge understood the answer. 

“ If they are not in that room, they are gone, and can be pursued 
and brought back,” said Madame Defarge to herself. 

“ As long as you don’t know whether they are in that room or not, 
you are uncertain what to do,” said Miss Pross to herseU; “and you 
shall not know that, if I can prevent your knowing it; and know that, or 
not know that, you shall not leave here while I can hold you.” 

“ I have been in the streets from the first, nothing has stopped me, 
I will tear you to pieces, but I will have you from that door,” said 
Madame Defarge. 

“ We are alone at the top of a high house in a solitary court-yard, 
we are not likely to be heard, and I pray for bodily strength to keep 
you here, while every minute you are here is worth a hundred thousand 
guineas to my darling,” said Miss Pross. 

Madame Defarge made for the door. Miss Pross, on the instinct 
of the moment, seized her round the waist in both her arms, and held 
her tight. It was in vain for Madame Defarge to struggle and to 
strike; Miss Pross, with the vigorous tenacity of love, always so much 
stronger than hate, clasped her tight, and even lifted her from the floor 
in the struggle that they had. The two hands of Madame Defarge, 
buffeted and tore her face ; but. Miss Pross, with her head down, held her 
round the waist, and clung to her with more than the hold of a drown- 
ing woman. 

Soon, Madame Defarge’s hands ceased to strike, and felt at her 
encircled waist. “ It is under my arm,” said Miss Pross, in smothered 
tones, “ you shall not draw it. I am stronger than you, I bless Heaven 
for it. I’ll hold you till one or other of us faints or dies ! ” 


THE KNITTING DONE 


355 

Madame Defarge’s hands were at her bosom. Miss Pross looked up, 
saw what it was, struck at it, struck out a flash and a crash, and stood 
alone — blinded with smoke. 

All this was in a second. As the smoke cleared, leaving an awful 
stillness, it passed out on the air, like the soul of the furious woman 
whose body lay lifeless on the ground. 

In the first fright and horror of her situation. Miss Pross passed 
the body as far from it as she could, and ran down the stairs to call for 
fruitless help. Happily, she bethought herself of the consequences of 
what she did, in time to check herself and go back. It was dreadful 
to go in at the door again; but, she did go in, and even went near it, to 
get the bonnet and other things that she must wear. These she put on, 
out on the staircase, first shutting and locking the door and taking 
away the key. She then sat down on the stairs a few moments to 
breathe and to cry, and then got up and hurried away. 

By good fortune she had a veil on her bonnet, or she could hardly 
have gone along the streets without being stopped. By good for- 
tune, too, she was naturally so peculiar in appearance as not to show 
disfigurement like any other woman. She needed both advantages, for 
the marks of griping fingers were deep in her face, and her hair was torn, 
and her dress (hastily composed with unsteady hands) was clutched 
and dragged a hundred ways. 

In crossing the bridge, she dropped the door key in the river. Ar- 
riving at the cathedral some few minutes before her escort, and waiting 
there, she thought, what if the key were already taken in a net, what if 
it were identified, what if the door were opened and the remains dis- 
covered, what if she were stopped at the gate, sent to prison, and charged 
with murder! In the midst of these fluttering thoughts, the escort ap- 
peared, took her in, and took her away. 

“ Is there any noise in the streets? ” she asked him. 

“The usual noises,” Mr. Cruncher replied; and looked surprised by 
the question and by her aspect. 

“ I don’t hear you,” said Miss Pross. “ What do you say? ” 

It was in vain for Mr. Cruncher to repeat what he said; Miss Pross 
could not hear him. “ So I’ll nod my head,” thought Mr. Cruncher, 
amazed, “ at all events she’ll see that.” And she did. 

“ Is there any noise in the streets now? ” asked Miss Pross again, 
presently. 


356 A TALE OF TWO CITIES 

Again Mr. Cruncher nodded his head. 

“ I don’t hear it.” 

‘‘Gone deaf In a hour?” said Mr. Cruncher, ruminating, with his 
mind much disturbed; “ wot’s come to her?” 

“ I feel,” said Miss Pross, “ as if there had been a flash and a crash, 
and that crash was the last thing I should ever hear in this life.” 

“ Blest if she ain’t in a queer condition ! ” said Mr. Cruncher, more 
and more disturbed. “ Wot can she have been a talcin’, to keep her 
courage up? Hark! There’s the roll of them dreadful carts! You 
can hear that, miss? ” 

‘‘ I can hear,” said Miss Pross, seeing that he spoke to her, “ noth- 
ing. O, my good man, there was first a great crash, and then a great 
stillness, and that stillness seems to be fixed and unchangeable, never to 
be broken any more as long as my life lasts.” 

‘‘ If she don’t hear the roll of those dreadful carts, now very nigh 
their journey’s end,” said Mr. Cruncher, glancing over his shoulder, “ it’s 
my opinion that Indeed she never will hear anything else in this world.” 

And, indeed, she never did. 


CHAPTER XV 


THE FOOTSTEPS DIE OUT FOREVER 
LONG the Paris streets, the death-carts rumble, hollow and harsh. 



jr\ Six tumbrils carry the day’s wine to La Guillotine. All the devour- 
ing and insatiate Monsters imagined since imagination could record itself, 
are fused in the one realization. Guillotine. And yet there is not in 
France, with its rich variety of soil and climate, a blade, a leaf, a root, 
a sprig, a peppercorn, which will grow to maturity under conditions more 
certain than those that have produced this horror. Crush humanity 
out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself 
into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious license 
and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit ac- 
cording to its kind. 

Six tumbrils roll along the streets. Change these back again to what 
they were, thou powerful enchanter. Time, and they shall be seen to be 
the carriages of absolute monarchs, the equipages of feudal nobles, the 
toilettes of flaring Jezebels, the churches that are not my Father’s house 
but dens of thieves, the huts of millions of starving peasants! No; the 
great magician who majestically works out the appointed order of the 
Creator, never reverses his transformations. “ If thou be changed into 
this shape by the will of God,” say the seers to the enchanted, in the 
wise Arabian- stories, “then remain sol But, if thou wear this form 
through mere passing conjuration, then resume thy former aspect ! ” 
Changeless and hopeless, the tumbrils roll along. 

As the sombre wheels of the six carts go round, they seem to plow 
up a long crooked furrow among the populace in the streets. Ridges 
of faces are thrown to this side and to that, and the plows go steadily 
onward. So used are the regular inhabitants of the houses to the 
spectacle, that in many windows there are no people, and in some the 
occupation of the hands is not so much as suspended, while the eyes 
survey the faces in the tumbrils. Here and there, the inmate has 
visitors to see the sight; then he points his finger, with something of the 
complacency of a curator or authorized exponent, to this cart and to 


358 A TALE OF TWO CITIES 

this, and seems to tell who sat here yesterday, and who there the day 
before. 

Of the riders in the tumbrils, some observe these things, and all 
things on their last roadside, with an impassive stare; others, with a 
lingering interest in the ways of life and men. Some, seated with 
drooping heads, are sunk in silent despair; again, there are some so 
heedful of their looks that they cast upon the multitude such glances as 
they have seen in theaters, and in pictures. Several close their eyes, 
and think, or try to get their straying thoughts together. Only one, 
and he is a miserable creature, of a crazed aspect, is so shattered and 
made drunk by horror, that he sings, and tries to dance. Not one of 
the whole number appeals by look or gesture, to the pity of the people. 

There is a guard of sundry horsemen riding abreast of the tumbrils, 
and faces are often turned up to some of them, and they are asked some 
question. It would seem to be always the same question, for, it is 
always followed by a press of people towards the third cart. The horse- 
men abreast of that cart frequently point out one man in it with their 
swords. The leading curiosity is, to know which is he; he stands at 
the back of the tumbril with his head bent down, to converse with a mere 
girl who sits on the side of the cart, and holds his hand. He has no 
curiosity or care for the scene about him, and always speaks to the girl. 
Here and there in the long street of St. Honore, cr^es are raised against 
him. If they move him at all, it is only to a quiet smile, as he shakes 
his hair a little more loosely about his face. He cannot easily touch 
his face, his arms being bound. 

On the steps of a church, awaiting the coming-up of the tumbrils, 
stands the Spy and prison-sheep. He looks into the first of them: 
not there. He looks into the second: not there. He already asks 
himself, “ Has he sacrificed me? ” when his face clears, as he looks into 
the third. 

“Which is Evremonde?” says a man behind him. 

“ That. At the back there.” 

“With his hand in the girl’s?” 

“ Yes.” 

The man cries, “ Down, Evremonde! To the Guillotine all aristo- 
crats I Down, Evremonde 1 ” 

“ Hush, hush I ” the Spy entreats him, timidly. 

“ And why not, citizen? ” 


359 


THE FOOTSTEPS DIE OUT FOREVER 

He Is going to pay the forfeit : it will be paid in five minutes more. 
Let him be at peace.” 

But the man continuing to exclaim, “ Down, Evremonde ! ” the face 
of Evremonde is for a moment turned towards him. Evremonde then 
sees the Spy, and looks attentively at him, and goes his way. 

The clocks are on the stroke of three, and the furrow plowed among 
the populace is turning round, to come on into the place of execution, 
and end. The ridges thrown to this side and to that, now crumble in 
and close behind the last plow as^ it passes on, for all are following 
to the Guillotine. In front of it, seated In chairs, as in a garden of pub- 
lic diversion, are a number of women, busily knitting. On one of the 
foremost chairs, stands The Vengeance, looking about for her friend. 

“Theresel” she cries. In her shrill tones. “Who has see^ her? 
Therese Defarge ! ” 

“ She never missed before,” says a knitting-woman of the s-Isterhood. 

“No; nor will she miss now,” cries The Vengeance, petulantly. 
“ Therese.” 

“ Louder,” the woman recommends. 

Ay ! Louder, Vengeance, much louder, and still she mil scarcely hear 
thee. Louder yet. Vengeance, with a little oath or so added, and yet 
it will hardly bring her. Send other women up and down to seek her, 
lingering somewhere ; and yet, although the messengers have done dread 
deeds, it Is questionable whether of their own wills they will go far 
enough to find her ! 

“ Bad Fortune ! ” cried The Vengeance, stamping her foot In the 
chair, “ and here are the tumbrils ! And Evremonde will be despatched 
In a wink, and she not here! See her knitting in my hand, and her 
empty chair ready for her. I cry with vexation and disappointment! ” 

As The Vengeance descends from her elevation to do it, the tumbrils 
begin to discharge their loads. The ministers of Sainte Guillotine are 
robed and ready. Crash ! — A head is held up, and the knitting-women 
who scarcely lifted their eyes to look at it a moment ago when it could 
think and speak, count One. 

The second tumbril empties and moves on; the third comes up. 
Crash ! — And the knitting-women, never faltering or pausing In their 
work, count Two. 

The supposed Evremonde descends, and the seamstress is lifted out 
next after him. He has not relinquished her patient hand in getting out. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


360 

but still holds it as he promised. He gently places her with her back 
to the crashing engine that constantly whirrs up and falls, and she looks 
into his face and thanks him. 

“ But for you, dear stranger, I should not be so composed, for I am 
naturally a poor little thing, faint of heart; nor should I have been able 
to raise my thoughts to Him who was put to death, that we might have 
hope and comfort here to-day. I think you were sent to me by Heaven.” 

“ Or you to me,” says Sydney Carton. “ Keep your eyes upon me, 
dear child, and mind no other object.” 

“ I mind nothing while I hold your ‘hand. I shall mind nothing 
w'hen I let it go, if they are rapid.” 

“ They will be rapid. Fear not! ” 

The two stand in the fast-thinning throng of victims, but they speak 
as if they were alone. Eye to eye, voice to voice, hand to hand, heart 
to heart, these two children of the Universal Mother, else so wide 
apart and differing, have come together on the dark highway, to repair 
home together, and to rest in her bosom. 

“ Brave and generous friend, will you let me ask you one last ques- 
tion? I am very ignorant, and it troubles me — just a little.” 

“ Tell me what is it.” 

“ I have a cousin, an only relative and an orphan, like myself, whom 
I love very dearly. She is five years younger than I, and she lives in a 
farmer’s house in the south country. Poverty parted us, and she knows 
nothing of my fate — - for I cannot write — and if I could, how should 
I tell her 1 It is better as it is.” 

“ Yes, yes : better as it is.” 

“ What I have been thinking as we came along, and what I am still 
thinking now, as I look into your kind strong face which gives me so 
much support, is this: — If the Republic really does good to the poor, 
and they come to be less hungry, and in all ways to suffer less, she may 
live a’ long time. She may even live to be old.” 

” What then, my gentle sister? ” 

“ Do you think,” the uncomplaining eyes in which there is so much 
endurance, fill with tears, and the lips part a little more and tremble: 
“ that it will seem long to me, while I wait for her in the better land 
where I trust both you and I will be mercifully sheltered? ” 

“ It cannot be, my child; there is no Time there, and no trouble there.” 




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THE FOOTSTEPS DIE OUT FOREVER 361 

You comfort me so much ! I am so ignorant. Am I to kiss you 
now? Is the moment come?” 

” Yes.” 

She kisses his lips; he kisses hers; they solemnly bless each other. 
The spare hand does not tremble as he releases it; nothing worse than a 
sweet, bright constancy is in the patient face. She goes next before 
him is gone; the knitting-women count Twenty-Two. 

“ I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord; he that be- 
lieveth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever 
liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.” 

The murmuring of many voices, the upturning of many faces, the 
pressing on of many footsteps in the outskirts of the crowd, so that it 
swells forward in a mass, like one great heave of water, all flashes 
away. Twenty-Three. 

They said of him, about the city that night, that it was the peace- 
fulest man’s face ever beheld there. Many added that he looked sub- 
lime and prophetic. 

One of the most remarkable sufferers by the same ax — a woman — 
had asked at the foot of the same scaffold, not long before, to be allowed 
to write down the thoughts that were inspiring her. If he had given 
any utterance to his, and they were prophetic, they would have been 
these : 

” I see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Vengeance, the Juryman, the 
Judge, long ranks of the new oppressors who have risen on the destruc- 
tion of the old, perishing by this retributive instrument, before it shall 
cease out of its present use. I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people 
rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their 
triumphs and defeats, through long long years to come, I see the evil 
of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, 
gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out. 

“ I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, pros- 
perous and happy, in that England which I shall see no more. I see 
Her with a child upon her bosom, who bears my name. I see her 
father, aged and bent, but otherwise restored and faithful to all men in 
his healing office, and at peace. I see the good old man, so long 
their friend, in ten years time enriching them with all he has, and 
passing tranquilly to his reward. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


362 

“ I see that I hold a sanctuary In their hearts, and in the hearts of 
their descendants, generations hence. I see her, an old woman, weep- 
ing for me on the anniversary of this day. I see her and her husband, 
their course done, lying side by side In their last earthly bed, and I 
know that each was not more honored and held sacred in the other’s 
soul, than I was in the souls of both. 

“ I see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my name, a 
m.an winning his way up in that path of life which once was mine. I 
see him winning It so well, that my name is made illustrious there by the 
light of his. I see the blots I threw upon it, faded away, I see him, 
foremost of just judges and honored men, bringing a boy of my name, 
with a forehead that I know and golden hair, to this place — then fair 
to look upon, with not a trace of this day’s disfigurement — and I hear 
him tell the child my story, with a tender and a faltering voice. 

“ It Is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; It 
Is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.” 


THE END 





























































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